Wilro Lions fill more than 100 Dignity Handbags
On Freedom Day, the Wilro Lions were joined by supportive community members, the Roodekrans Neighbourhood Watch, the Roodepoort Police, CANSA, Y-Life Coaching and the principal of Princess High School for a special awareness event.
In February of this year, the Wilro Park Lions Club relaunched their Ladies Dignity Handbag Project after noticing the terrifying climb in domestic and gender-based violence crimes being reported.
The project had fallen into the background as the Lions took on more and more initiatives, but two of their Service Committee members, Sonja Eloff and Niqula Kruger are proud to bring the project new life. Community members have been donating pre-loved and new handbags, along with a few small items to fill them with such as soaps, toothbrushes, body lotions, small gifts, a note and more. The filled handbags are distributed to women’s shelters and victim support centres to be given to traumatised women in hopes of showing them that they are not alone, and raising awareness on what has been dubbed South Africa’s second pandemic.
Find out what goes inside each Dignity Bag and how you can help here: Wilro Lions relaunch Ladies Handbag Dignity ProjectÂ
On Freedom Day, the Wilro Lions were joined by supportive community members, the Roodekrans Neighbourhood Watch, the Roodepoort Police, CANSA, Y-Life Coaching and the principal of Princess High School for a special awareness event. Seeing the amazing work that the Wilro Lions do throughout their community, Y-Life Coaching’s founder, Yolande du Plooy, made contact with the NPO in hopes of forming a partnership. With this partnership, the Wilro Lions and Y-Life will be able to help even more desperate women and raise awareness on a much wider spectrum.
The entry fee for the awareness event and morning tea was a pre-loved handbag or an item to fill one of the dignity bags, and with the donations received before and on the day, the Wilro Lions have been able to fill more than 100 handbags, and they won’t be stopping there. A few of the filled handbags were given to the Roodepoort Police’s Victim Support Centre for women who come to the station seeking help. Whenever the support centre needs more bags, Chaplain Lukas Visagie from Victim Support can let the Lions know and an arrangement will be made to drop off more. The other bags will be donated to various shelters and support centres throughout the community.
Between testimonies, and speeches by motivational speakers the attendees could enjoy a bounty of delicious snacks with a cup of tea or coffee. If you would like to find out more about the Ladies Dignity Handbag Project, or get involved, contact Niqula on 084 603 47187 or Sonja on 083 268 1397. To find out more about Y-Life Coaching, contact Yolande on 082 566 1572.
