HEARTBREAK IN KENYA

SUICIDE

The following Facebook post from DFG founder and head, Celeste Mergens, elaborates on the heartbreaking story about what happened in Kenya a few days ago:

This morning I got a call from my friend Anita Byegon, a Days for Girls Ambassador of Women's Health for Bomet County, Kenya.

She had just returned from a school there where a 12-year-old girl (the media says 14, but the mother told Anita she was 12) committed suicide after being shamed about a menses stain on her uniform during class. I don't usually highlight the worst of the things we hear that girls go through. Days for Girls chooses to feature the good that can happen when girls, women, and communities have what they need. But today, I speak for Jacqueline, and the price she had to pay for lack of a pad and vital health knowledge. Today, her voice matters.

Here is what Anita shares that she had learned. On Friday, September 6th, 2019, at approximately 11 am in Bomet County, Kenya, 12-year-old Jacqueline, and three other students were asked to go get pencils for a writing assignment. The two other students rose, Jacqueline did not stand. The teacher pushed her, demanding that she stand. Reluctantly Jacqueline complied, revealing a red stain spreading across the back of her dress. She had just started her first period. Her Class Six teacher chided her, calling her dirty for soiling her dress. The teacher told her to stand outside while she went to the office to get a pad. Though the government had provided a few pads for the “most needy cases,” the school had no remaining menstrual supplies to offer, they were used up by other pupils. Before the teacher even returned, Jacqueline had gone home crying. 

Her mother, who had to leave to tend to another daughter who has been at the hospital for several months, says that she left having given Jacqueline instruction to go fetch water with the Jerry can with the rope tied to it to gather water, then to wash up and return to school. Jacqueline never returned. The same rope she took to the river to fetch water, is the rope that she used to hang herself from a tree near there. The neighbor found her body cold. 

Shortly afterward, WhatsApp and Facebook messages started coming into Anita Byegon, a Days for Girls Ambassador of Women’s Health of Bomet County. Could she come to help? Within 20 minutes, she arrived at the school. She listened and cried with the students and teachers. Anita showed the teachers and District leaders the Days for Girls education and pad system she is passionate about and expert in. Everyone agreed that the washable DfG pads would help the students count on having what they needed, but the education would have kept this girl alive. Jacqueline’s shame would have been transformed to respect for her body. The teacher would have been less likely to have made the mistake of shaming. The classroom would have been challenged to rise above mocking. 

On Tuesday the 10th more than 200 people came to the school with the girl’s mother to protest the school and leaders for not ensuring the girl’s safety. They tore down the gates to the school in anger. They asked the police to take action against the teacher. 

Anita asked those gathered to pitch in to ensure that school had what they needed, “Because of lack of menstrual education, we have lost a girl. A few boxes of pads and teaching them how to use it is not going to change this. Complete health and safety education can change the shame.”Anita has promised to return within 5 days with the education and Days for Girls kits for every girl, and teacher at the school.I'm so glad this is something we can change together, because this, this breaks my heart. And it is also a reminder that we have so much more to do. But this is something that must change. And it can, together. Thank you Anita. And thank you to all who step in to help Days for Girls around the world. We must go faster. Dignity, safety, lives can't wait.@daysforgirls

This is infuriating and heartbreaking.   I'd heard that girls are often humiliated for menstrual stains on their skirts, but frankly, it never dawned on me that that ridicule would come from their teacher.  

I was also shocked to learn that girls in several countries have disclosed to Days for Girls volunteers that teachers and headmasters at their schools would trade sexual favors for sanitary napkins. Kenya was the first place this was heard, and it's come up in other countries too: "Thank you, Days for Girls--now we won't have to let them use us."

This is one of many reasons why we are so passionate about these kits and the education that goes with them.  Days for Girls now also has an education program for the men and boys, called Men Who Know. 

Kenya happens to be the country to which we have sent the most kits for distribution, and have also gotten supplies into the hands of the Christine Khamasi (you may remember her from an earlier post), head of the Nairobi Days for Girls Enterprise, helping them reach more girls.  

If this touches your heart, PLEASE support us with your talents and/or funds, to help us continue changing lives.  Donations are  tax deductible.  You can donate online (and a processing fee will be deducted) or give me cash or a check made out to Days for Girls, with "Eugene Chapter" in the memo line (no processing fee for checks or cash).  Either way, the funds will go to our chapter and you'll get an official receipt from Days for Girls International. If you happen to come across a good deal on the supplies we need for our kits, that's great too, and I can give you a receipt for your "in-kind" donation.  Below is the most up-to-date wish list for our chapter.

OUR WISH LIST

Here's the most up-to-date list of supplies we need, mostly in order of current need:

DAYS FOR GIRLS

  Eugene/Springfield Chapter

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), patriotic, camouflage, food, religion, words, or holidays.  Avoid solids.  No metallics/glittery.

Cotton or cotton blend underpants, girls' sizes 10, 12, 14 & 16, and smaller women’ sizes, as colorful as possible (for hiding stains). The styles we use are bikini (preferred by most of the girls), briefs, and hipsters.  Please no boy shorts or thong styles.  Fabric restrictions apply here too (except that solids are great). Do not wash the undies. 

PUL fabric  in colorful prints or solids (remember, no faces or juvenile prints).  Babyville is one brand.

Polyester serger thread—good quality, medium/darker colors.

Polyester thread in medium and dark colors (Gutermann is a good brand).  

Quality cotton flannel(see fabric restrictions above).  If you have time to wash, dry and press it, that’s greatly appreciated. Better quality is more absorbent, better for our kits.  We are phasing away from the thinner JoAnn's Snuggle flannel.

Rotary cutter blades, 45mm or 60mm

Quality cotton fabric, the prettier the better. (see fabric restrictions above).  We get such gorgeous donations from local quiltmakers!  I seriously believe that we may make the most beautiful quilts of any team, chapter or enterprise in the world!

Cotton washcloths, in darker colors.

MORE ON ADJUSTING YOUR SERGER TENSION

A week or two ago, I sent out an email about the sub-par serging some machines are doing on our liners.  If your serger stitches are less than perfect, here's some adjusting tips from Nancy Zieman's website.  BTW, her site is where I first read about Days for Girls--she interviewed DFG founder Celeste Mergens and I was hooked.

Here's another serger site I've found useful in the past.

UPCOMING DATES OF NOTE:

Saturday, October 5:   Our regular first-Saturday workday at Our Sewing Room. 

Friday, October 11:  International Day of the Girl.  

Saturday, October 19:  National Period Day.  Festivities in Portland--in part protesting and drawing attention to period poverty and the taxes some states levy on feminine hygiene products.  For example, did you know that in California, menstrual supplies are taxed, but chocolate is not?

Friday, November 1:   11th birthday of Days for Girls International.  It was in celebration of this milestone that DFG decided to send 11,000 kits to refugee girls and women in each of three, then four countries:  Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia and South Sudan.  We contributed 527 of those last month.  It will be interesting to read the final numbers, which should be available soon. I'm hoping even more than 33,000 girls and women were reached--I know we packed in an additional 27 over the 500 we pledged, to firmly fill all eleven boxes.  Maybe many others did too!

Saturday, November 2:  Our regular first-Saturday workday at Our Sewing Room.  You're encouraged to bring presents for making Days for Girls kits!  Scroll up for our wish list.  

Wow--It would have been my mother's 100th birthday that day!  I'll bring a cake in her honor and memory.  She's the one who gave me a love and appreciation for fabric and sewing, so, in part, she's responsible for my involvement in Days for Girls!