I was impressed that we were able to have even a skeleton crew at our December 20th workday, so close to Christmas. A baker's dozen of us worked on non-construction tasks, such as pressing, quality-checking and folding liners, folding underwear, cutting out shields, affixing snaps to sewn shields, sewing labels on bags, etc.
We have a batch of 75 kits going to Kenya in early January. My goal is always to have all the bags in a distribution be made of different fabrics. These kits are of such a personal nature, I like to reduce the chances of the recipients getting them mixed up. I think we're going to meet that goal this time around.
Thank you so much for all of your interest and support for Days for Girls this year. Some accomplishments for 2015:
We have a very interesting and fun group of folks who have found us, one way or another, who gather to work at Our Sewing Room each month. Please join us when you can! A few wonderful women drive an hour or more each way to volunteer.
We sent kits and components to girls and women in 4 African countries--Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
The status for our local group has been changed from team to Chapter!
We participated successfully in fundraisers via Crowdrise, and raised significant dollars from our generous supporters to purchase supplies.
We will continue to meet at Our Sewing Room on the third Sunday of each month. I so appreciate Mary Jo and Don being willing to open up the wonderful facility for us! We are extremely lucky to have such a perfect room to work in.
My goal for our chapter for 2016 is to focus on quality, each of us checking our work to ascertain that it meets all of the guidelines. I'd like all the life-changing kits that come from our Chapter to be as close to perfect as humanly possible. We want every one of these components to be beautiful, well-sewn, the right size, and in suitable patterns and colors. Should we ever have to make a choice, it would definitely be quality over quantity.
Here's a short video you might enjoy.
Days for Girls International CEO Speaks on Sustainable Feminine Hygiene
By Zee Krstic
It was 2:30 a.m. when Celeste Mergens first thought of a question that would later change her life.
“How do you ask what the girls are doing for feminine hygiene?” she asked the audience when speaking recently at the University of Florida.
It came to her after visiting slums in Kibera, Kenya, where she worked in an orphanage housing over 400 children.
“They wait in their rooms while sitting on a piece of cardboard” she said. “How do you possibly wait in your room with 50 other people?”
This is the issue Mergens, founder and CEO of Days for Girls International, has strived to eliminate in the seven years since founding the organization in 2008. Among its various humanitarian efforts, Days for Girls is committed to a sustainable solution to the lack of feminine hygiene products in developing nations, Mergens said.
Days for Girls has an international model for manufacturing resuable menstruation pads from fabric. The group has more than 450 chapters in 14 different countries and has a goal of reaching “every girl, everywhere, period” by 2022, Mergens shared with those in attendance.
Days for Girls has given products to more than 200,000 women, and the group has used their feedback to create over 27 models of the pad, resulting in the version currently used today.
Many of the pads go to impoverished girls whose lack of access to feminine products causes problems beyond just hygiene. Some are sexually exploited by school teachers and administration when seeking feminine hygiene products, Mergens said.
Girls who stay home during menstruation before eventually dropping out are part of the root of poverty in third-world countries, she said.
“[The pad] helps a girl stay in school with dignity and health and not use the things so often resorted to,” said Mergens, which often include bark, leaves, cornhusks, stones, newspaper and mattress stuffing.
Mergens emphasized the issue doesn’t only happen in developing countries, but it also happens here in the United States.
“It’s not just somewhere else. It’s right here in your community, I promise. Anywhere where someone has the choice between food and hygiene, food wins,” said Mergens, who has distributed the organization’s hygiene products through chapters in New York City, Chicago and New Orleans.
Even with the organization’s efforts, Mergens believes the issue of sustainable and accessible feminine hygiene products can’t be answered without a change in public perception.
“We’re too afraid to talk about menstruation. We would rather talk about diarrhea than menstruation,” she said. “In fact, none of us came into this world without menstruation happening. What we’re up to is so much more than giving dignity, health and resources.”
Days for Girls depends on crucial volunteer support, Mergens said, including Gainesville’s own Girl Scouts Troupe 733, which has locally supported the cause over the last year.
In addition to holding ‘Sew-a-Thons’ at Santa Fe College’s Perry Center throughout the year, Radha Selvester, one of the troop’s leaders, is part of a group of 10 that will travel to Kenya Dec. 17-30.
Selvester has fundraised more than $2,500 for supplies, such as sewing machines, to bring to Kenya through Crowdsource.
The group, including four local girls and two UF students, will establish a local Sewing and Health Enterprise in Tharaka Nithi, one of the smallest and most rural counties in Kenya, Selvester said. Their goal is to teach women how to make the pads on their own, she said.
“You might think it’s okay to sit at home, but you’re ostracized,” said Selvester.
For 21-year-old Ginnie Lin, a Gainesville native in her third year at UF, attending the event opened her eyes to the issue.
“Girls are the ones who are receiving and using these hygiene things,” she said. “To have that pretty pad to use for something that is so ugly in so many cultures is so important.”
Mergens presented her lecture, “Turning Passion Into Action,” in cooperation with the Bob Graham Center for Public Service and the Alachua County Medical Society.