Last month Goods 4 Girls sent 55 kits along with Natalie Angell, the Co-Founder and Director of The Shanti Uganda Foundation to distribute in the Entebbe area of Uganda.A Vancouver, B.C. based organisation, Shanti Uganda works with communities impacted by war, poverty and HIV/AIDS in Uganda. Their projects in Uganda include yoga, birth education/assistance and small community development projects. They work in rural areas with young girls and women who are in desperate need of support.
Goods 4 Girls worked with Shanti Uganda to bring the girls in their HIV/AIDS cooperative a supply of reusable menstrual products. Natalie personally distributed the kits to the girls and provided informational sessions. The girls were in tears they were so happy - especially when they began to understand that they could keep the pads forever and not toss them out!
Shanti Uganda works with a group of school aged orphans just outside of Entebbe - the girls all live at the school and have access to water to clean the pads. Often times the girls simply do not go to school, or eventually stop coming all-together.
I had the pleasure of meeting Natalie as she personally picked up the kits from my house on a trip to Seattle in June. I am happy to say that the money saved on shipping the kits was used to purchase additional pads for distribution in Sudan.
For those of you interested in learning more about the Goods 4 Girls program or are wondering how you can help donate, visit the How to Donate page.
Posts
8 Crunchy Thoughts:
Great post! This is something I've only just become aware of since I starting reading your posts. Thanks!
This is such an inspiring and important project Crunchy - thanks for all the work you're doing to make it happen, and thanks to people like Natalie who follow through with the delivery. Fantastic!
Thank you so much for the updates! I am so glad to know more about this great project.
I was wondering if perhaps this project could become something that the girls could take on themselves; provided with the materials and training on sewing them, could they not begin to make the pads? If so, it would allow them to make adequate numbers for their needs and perhaps they could be paid to do this as a p/t job, sewing them to be distributed in their country? Even better would be if some of the older girls or adult women could become trainers and travel to other areas to teach others as well.
Yeah Goods 4 Girls! Crunchy, I just finished reading Three Cups of Tea. If you haven't read it, you should. It reminded me of you and your organization, and that's a pretty big compliment. Regular people can have a big impact. You are doing that here and I hope everyone of your readers sees that opportunity and donates to G4G.
I recommended your blog today for Blog Day...happy happy Blog Day!
that is so awesome!!!
I am so happy to hear about the success of this program. Thank you for making this happen. When I worked at GladRags, we were often concerned with the lack of sanitary pads in these African communities and now you have provided a mechanism for helping to work on this problem. Really great work! If there is anything I can do to help, please feel free to ask! - dianamorg@gmail.com
Post a Comment