TRIFC Board Member, Rose Stevens recently gave training to
our women’s group in sewing and assembling a sanitary protection kit which we
intend to pilot with 100 students in the various schools we provide assistance
to.
The kit, originally designed by ‘Days for Girls’ (www.daysforgirls.org)
in Lynden, Washington provides a hygienic, culturally appropriate and green
method of managing young womens’ monthly menstruation cycle. Without a proper sanitary pad solution, this sensitive
issue can keep girls home from school for a week each month, or they may find
it too difficult to manage and abandon school altogether.
While it may seem like a simple solution to purchase
sanitary pads at the local store, in many cases that is not possible, plus it
can be too costly to manage for many students (or TRIFC). In addition, in most cases there is no
garbage pick-up available so the discarded pads are a huge sanitation problem.
The kits we are making contain a panty liner with a moisture
barrier sewn-in, many washable pads made with colorful flannel fabric (when
hung out to dry after washing, they don’t ‘look’ like a sanitary pad), soap and
zip lock bags to wash them in (requiring minimal water to wash) and picture
instructions.
Under Rose’s superb instruction our women’s group was
immediately up and running. Scissors
and smiles flying, patterns being drawn out on the fabric, lot’s of Nepali
sign-language ‘chatter’! It was so
gratifying to see these women work together in such a dedicated way on such a high-impact project.
We are excited to see how well these kits are received by
our pilot group of young women users. If
successful, we hope to provide many more of these kits to young women students
in all of our schools and perhaps beyond to other schools and other young women
students in need!
Warmly,
-Rob.
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