Helping girls, help themselves
WELTEVREDEN PARK – Making sure that not a single day of school is missed one sanitary pack at a time.
Kindness like confetti (KLC) and Charity begins with me (CBWM) come together for a great initiative where they collected sanitary pads and handed them out to deserving girls.
KLC founder, Alyson Samson and CBWM founder, Stephan Ferreira came together in March and were able to collect about 2 925 sanitary pads, which were all donated by friends and neighbours in both the Linden and Weltevreden Park areas.
These pads were donated to the Imbumba Foundation’s Caring4Girls programme on 16 March. Although the Imbumba Foundation is based in Kwa-Zulu Natal, Samson was fortunate enough to meet up with founder, Richard Mabaso, in Johannesburg to hand over the donation.
The hand-over took place at the Nelson Mandela Foundation offices in Houghton. Caring4Girls is a sanitary towel distribution programme which aims to keep young girls in school during their monthly cycles.
The programme focuses on creating awareness around puberty, adolescence and in the process aims to demystify all menstrual-related myths. Samson explained that research has revealed that most poor girls may miss up to 50 days of schooling annually due to the lack of access to adequate sanitary protection.
“Due to the fantastic support, we were able to continue with our collection of pads during the rest of the month and were able to donate an additional 1 090 pads, 425 pantyliners and 300 tampons to the Sparrow Schools FET College in Sophiatown on 31 March,” said Samson.
Samson went on to further add that the girls are delighted as pads are so expensive, and having their own pads gives them their dignity back. She excitedly added that she was delighted to be part of this initiative and really hope that they managed to raise awareness within the communities about what young girls go through every month. “Many girls resort to using old socks filled with sand or leaves, said Samson.
She concluded that they would be do another big drive for sanitary pads in May as Menstrual Hygiene Day is celebrated around the world on 28 May.
Details: Kindness like confetti, kindconfetti@outlook.com; Charity begins with me, 072 593 3866.
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