A BIRTHDAY PARTY MEANS CAKE AND PRESENTS!
Our March 3 workday just happens to fall on my birthday. It's also our volunteer Glenda's birthday! So, I'm declaring our workday to also be a birthday party! (Yes, there will be cake--from the incredible Sweet Life, of course!) And what a great excuse to ask for presents! No, not for Glenda and me, but for our Days for Girls kits! Of course monetary contributions are always delightful, but if you'd prefer to buy something, here's a list of things we'd welcome:
Donations
Wish List
Fabric restrictions: Medium/dark to dark colors, in busy
stain-hiding designs, such as florals. Because of cultural considerations, we
need to avoid prints depicting weapons, people/animals with faces, insects
(butterflies are OK), camouflage, religion, words, or holidays. Avoid solids.
Quality cotton fabric, the prettier the better. (see
fabric restrictions above).
Quality cotton flannel (see fabric restrictions
above). If you have time to wash, dry
and press it, that’s greatly appreciated.
Girls’ cotton underpants, sizes 8, 10, 12, 14 & 16, as colorful as possible (for hiding stains). The style we use is briefs—please no bikini/hipster/thong/boy shorts styles (see fabric restrictions above--but darker solids are fine). Do not wash. Multipacks usually have some that are too light, and we will dye those.
Polyester serger thread—good quality, medium and dark colors.
Polyester thread in medium and dark colors (Gutermann is a good brand).
Cotton washcloths, in darker colors. Target has an excellent price on 8-packs by
Room Essentials. These are a perfect weight
for us. Do not wash. Not microfiber.
Rotary cutter blades, 45mm or 60mm
Ziploc brand gallon size freezer bags (photo of meat on front of box)
OR . . .
Another great gift idea is to buy and/or sell some tickets for our cheerful raffle quilt! It's made out of leftover strips of cotton fabric from our shields and bags. Tickets are $1 each or six for $5. For every $10 of tickets that you buy or sell, you're getting twelve chances on the quilt, AND, more importantly, providing a life-changing kit to one girl, a kit that will last her 3 years!
We're drawing the winner's name on Global Menstrual Hygiene Day, May 28. Will it be you?
You'll be helping Days for Girls Eugene and the recipients of our kits, no matter how you decide to contribute! If you can't make it to our workdays, but want to buy some tickets, please post a comment to this blog. It won't be public unless you ask me to make it so.
WHY TOILETS MATTER
Focusing on the lack of toilets in India, this is a well-researched article from Harvard's Ed Magazine.
HELPING THE SYRIAN REFUGEES
On January 23rd, I mailed a 24-pound box of liners and shields to the Days for Girls chapter in Crete. We had originally planned to send a large flat-rate box for $94, but when I saw how shallow that was, I realized that option is great for something heavy, like books, but not for our fabric items. So, I waited until I found a large, extra-sturdy book box at the library where I work, and then packed it with a huge vacuum seal bag that I filled with liners and shields. For only about $10 more, I was able to send about four times the quantity of DFG components that would have fit in the so-called "large" flat-rate box. It took a week to arrive in Greece, cleared customs in a day, and then took TWO weeks more to arrive at Days for Girls in Crete! I was worried that some postal or customs worker would open the vacuum sealed bag and never be able to get everything back in the box! But, it's safely there, and those shields and liners will soon be packed into kits for the refugees. This is only a drop in the bucket--so many women and girls there need a way to manage their periods--I hope we can continue to contribute.
All those little nooks and crannies around the bag were stuffed with more liners and shields.
LEAVING ON A JET PLANE . . .
Don't forget, if you ever know of anybody traveling out of the country willing to check a duffle bag or two of supplies, please let me know. It doesn't even have to be to a Third World country. Our teams and chapters out of the USA can't get fabric for even half of what we pay, so they'd love to PayPal me money to buy yardage for them, then meet at the traveller's hotel to pick it up.OUR NEXT DISTRIBUTION
In March, we will be providing kits to the Makindu Children's Program in Kenya, for 250 girls, many of whom are AIDS orphans. I encourage you to browse their website and read some of the linked articles. Yet another Oregon-based nonprofit doing amazing things! You might even decide to help them in their fundraising efforts by joining their next safari in August. There are also a couple of Eugene fundraising events for Makindu in May. Let's all go to the one on May 8th at the Oregon Wine Lab!Some sobering statistics from Makindu's recent newsletter:
- 1 in 2 rural Kenyan girls will never go to school
- 1 in 8 Kenyan schoolgirls will become pregnant before they celebrate their 14th birthday
- Every year, about 13,000 Kenyan girls leave school forever due to pregnancy
- 90% of these teenage mothers become prostitutes
FUNDRAISER FOR HAITI MEDICAL MISSION
The Elmira Days for Girls team formed, and started supplying kits for Haitian girls and women last year. Cookie Green is a local nurse who not only heads up that DFG team, but also goes on Haiti medical missions twice a year AND fundraises for the medical clinics. Her big annual fundraising event is a spaghetti dinner at Sweet Cheeks Winery, coming right up on Sunday, March 11. Email or call Cookie to buy your tickets--in advance only. Bring your friends and family! We'll have our raffle quilt there too!
ECONOMIES THAT WORK FOR WOMEN WORK FOR EVERYONE!
Boy, does this make sense!
The future we want rests on freeing women’s power and potential.
The numbers tell a compelling story: If women played an identical role in labour markets to that of men, as much as US $28 trillion, or 26 per cent, could be added to the global annual Gross Domestic Product by 2025. Read this article from the United Nations here.
WHAT IS OUR GOAL?
Girls and women who have no feasible/affordable way to manage their periods typically miss out on fully participating in life (school, work, being in public, etc.) five days every month.
Our kits give them the washable and reusable supplies necessary to enable them to lead a normal life every day of the month.
This means that a girl who has one of our sustainable kits has the ability to reclaim 5 days a month, every month, without having to worry about obtaining funds (or providing sexual favors) to buy disposables. Our kits are lasting 3-4 years with proper care. A kit owner can fully participate in life 60 more days a year, or 180 more days over a 3-year period.
Every kit contains about $10 worth of supplies--the underwear, washcloths and material to make the bags, shields and liners (plus a lot of love). That works out to about 28¢ per menstrual period for a kit lasting three years. That's what it costs us--the recipient pays nothing.
Every $10 donation goes a long way towards leveling the playing field for girls. They can stay is school. Girls with more education will marry later, have healthier children, and help raise the economy of their communities. Pretty big bang for your buck--both for each girl and for our world!
Women in developing countries are being taught how to make the items in our kits. Accessing the materials and sewing machines/sergers (and electricity!) is often a challenge, but DFG is training women not only in how to produce the kits, but also in how to run a business so they can use these skills to earn some money making and selling the kits. We hope to one day have put ourselves out of business. Thanks for your significant part in making that happen!
WIKIPEDIA
There's an article on Days for Girls International in Wikipedia. Brief read, but it concludes with links to interesting articles.
The Wikipedia article didn't surprise me, but I'd never thought of looking on Pinterest for images. You may have heard me say that our kits are on something like the 29th design iteration. We listen to feedback from the girls and women who receive the kits, and make changes as needed. If you look for "Days for Girls" on Pinterest, you'll see some components that aren't according to the current guidelines, including ones that are a different shape and some that are made out of fabric that is too light to hide stains. You'll also see some that are perfect! And some photos from distributions. And some things that aren't connected to Days for Girls . . . .
OUR FEBRUARY WORKDAY
Heartfelt thanks to everybody who volunteered their time on February 3rd, helping us towards the goal of:
Every girl. Everywhere. Period.
100-YEAR HISTORY OF MENSTRUATION PRODUCTS
An article from the New York Post.
FGM IN TANZANIA
Good grief, Arizona!
UNLOADING MY VAN
Schlepping so much stuff isn't my favorite part of our workdays. Michelle, Jackie and I usually spend about the last hour packing up the tubs and boxes and amazingly fitting them all in my van. When I got home after our February workday, I decided to completely unpack my van, not wanting to be doing that during Sunday's predicted rain. I got down to the last stack of three containers, in the encroaching darkness, and as I pulled them towards me, I heard a very unwelcome sound. The top container was filled with sorted snap parts, and it had just emptied a few hundred colorful caps, sockets and studs onto the floor of my vehicle and the driveway. I really couldn't see them very well, but started scooping with my hands. Then I thought I really should take a picture to share--this is after many had been scooped back into their container.
I retrieved dozens (it felt like hundreds) more the next morning, plus the ones on the driveway, pre-rain, and with natural light. I'll see if little grandchild fingers can remove the ones in the holes for replacing the removed seat. If not, my vacuum bag will have some pretty blue and green sucked into it. Tuesday morning I found 7 more blue snap parts on the driveway . . . . I guess they're good rollers/bouncers.
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