REMINDERS

SPECIAL DAYS IN MAY

Our May DFG Workday!  We had a great workday yesterday--Cinco de Mayo.  Many regulars and 7 new volunteers!  A couple of other special days in May are great times to celebrate Days for Girls:  

Mothers' Day,  just a week away, is a great time to show your support for Days for Girls.  If you'd like to honor a mother and support Days for Girls at the same time, I enocourage you to make a contribution online.  When you donate, you'll get a receipt from our headquarters.  If you indicate our Eugene chapter as the recipient (and let me know), I can provide you with a acknowledgment that a contribution was made in honor (or in memory) of whomever you choose--a slip of paper you can tuck in a Mothers' Day card.  

To contribute online to our chapter, go to this special page for donating to teams and chapters.  Scroll down to the box that says "Fundraising Team" or "Fundraising Page" and type in "Eugene" to the right and we should come up.  Click on "DfG Eugene OR Chapter," then "Donate," and fill in your information.

Menstrual Hygiene Day is May 28th.  The date is easy to remember:  5th month for 5 days in a typical period, 28th day for the number of days in an average menstrual cycle.  This is an international day to promote awareness of menstrual management challenges faced by hundreds of millions of girls and women worldwide. It highlights solutions (such the work Days for Girls does) that address these challenges.  There's lots of information on their website, menstrualhygieneday.org.

Menstrual Hygiene Day is also the day our Chapter has chosen to draw the winning ticket in our raffle of a cheerful double bed size quilt.  It's made of scraps left over from sewing our bags and shields.  If  you'd like to buy some chances on the quilt, thereby enabling us to reach more girls and women, please let me know.  One dollar each, or six tickets for $5.

This quilt raffle is our big fundraiser for this year.  I'm delighted with the positive support the raffle has received.

In May, I also have the opportunity to speak to three more groups about Days for Girls.  If you're a member of an organization that would like a presentation, I'd be happy to arrange that with you!

PHOTOS!

I love to include photos from our workdays in this blog.  My challenge is remembering to take them!  So, Friday night I came up with the perfect solution.  I set the alarm on my phone to go off at various times during our workday.  So, you're wondering, then where are the pictures?   I forgot to take the phone to the workday! 

SUPPORT MAKINDU

Makindu Children's Program (which recently took kits to adolescent orphans in Kenya) is having a couple of fundraisers--one is at Oregon Wine Lab Tuesday--Makindu will receive 10% of wine sales, and the other is an online fundraiser (on their website or on this Global Giving fundraiser.  Can you help?

Read the current newsletter on their website to see some of their impressive accomplishments in 2017.

DO YOU TRAVEL?

If you ever know of  somebody traveling to an impoverished area of the world who has available luggage weight allowance, please let me know.  I can check and see if there are enterprises, contacts or kit requests in that area.  It's always delightful to have opportunities to get extra kits transported.  

We also appreciate folks who can transport supplies to teams and chapters working in other first world countries.  Our US prices for and selection of fabric are so much better than what DFG chapters can find in other countries.  I can buy here for them, they can reimburse me via PayPal, and the travelers can check bags as they have weight allowance available.

The handoff is simple--somebody can meet you at the airport or your hotel--your choice.  More lives are changed!

We've got generous travelers taking kits to Peru this week, and more transporting supplies to New Zealand and Africa in the next couple of months!  And maybe another heading to China in the fall.

MORE ABOUT CHHAUPADI HUTS IN NEPAL

The ancient practice of Chhaupadi holds that menstruating girls and women are impure.  Generations of girls and women in western Nepal have been banished to menstrual huts during their periods.  

A 2017 law bans that practice, and women are demolishing the huts. 

If you Google "chhaupadi," you'll find many articles about this unfortunate and cruel practice.  Let's hope that the harsh penalties that now come with forcing this isolation on women make it a part of the distant past.

OUR APRIL WORKDAY

We had nearly 3 dozen amazing volunteers on April 7th.  We accomplished so much, mainly non-sewing tasks.  Please, if you can sew or serge well, bring your machine to our work days. 

MAY AND JUNE DATES AND NEW HOURS

We'll have a workday on the first Saturday in May, and then on the  second  Saturday in June.  Also, Our Sewing Room has adjusted their hours.  From now on, we'll be ready to hand out jobs at 10:00  (instead of 10:30) and we will be packed up and gone before they close at 4:30.  

NEW YORK:  THE STATE FOLLOWS THE CITY'S LEAD

Remember the article I linked to last month about menstruation challenges for low-income and homeless girls and women?  Over a year ago New York City passed a law making menstrual supplies available free in public restrooms, public schools  and prisons.  Now the state has followed suit, requiring that public schools serving girls in grades 6-12 to provide free supplies.

 In August, the Federal Bureau of Prisons issued a memo mandating that feminine hygiene produces be available to all female inmates in federal institutions at no additional cost.

GIRLS IN RURAL GHANA

Keep these young women in mind as you think about the importance of Days for Girls.  One of the first batches of kits we set abroad was to Ghana.  I spoke at a church, where a college student was home from school, about how we're always looking for folks to transport kits. She and several of her classmates were going to be doing some volunteer work in Ghana shortly after that.  She called me, I contacted the DFG coordinator in Ghana, and the girl's classmates also said they'd take kits.  With significant help from other chapters, we were able to send fabric and hundreds of kits.

ON THE WEBSITE

Daysforgirls.org has published some stark and heartbreaking statistics relating to the problems Days for Girls addresses.  To read them, just click on this link and scroll down.

INVEST IN WOMEN?

A contribution of your time, supplies or money to our Days for Girls chapter is an investment in women.  What we do helps girls avoid having to miss school due to their periods.  It helps them stay in school longer.  This all adds up--read some of the stats and repercussions below:

WHY INVEST IN WOMEN?

BIRTHDAY PARTY RECAP

APRIL 7

That's our next workday, the first Saturday in April.  I really appreciate when you send me an email when you know if you're going to make it.  (I don't need to hear from you if you're not coming.)  If  you're on our mailing list, just respond to the reminder email I send out a few days before the workday.  (If you're not on the email list, and would like to be, you can sign up at any workday.)  

If you can bring your sewing machine, don't forget bobbins and the power cord.  A pair of sharp scissors and a seam ripper are helpful too.  Do label them.  If you'd like to do some cutting, you might want to bring your favorite (labeled) rotary cutter with a new blade.

Come anytime after 10:30, and stay as long as your schedule allows.  There's a kitchen, fridge, and microwave at Our Sewing Room, and many great places nearby to eat out if you choose.  On-street parking is 2-hour, so if you're planning to be with us longer, know that it's OK to park in the bank lot across the street.

IN TANZANIA

Here's an article from daysforgirls.org about how we're changing lives in Tanzania.

Once you follow that link and (I hope) read the article, note the list of other articles to the right.  You might find lots of good reads.

COLOR!!

Lynne's friend Annie has volunteered to dye our white and light-colored undies as a very generous contribution to Days for Girls.  In March, she did an incredible job on hundreds! Great, gorgeous, vibrant colors!  And that background flannel?  It was a pretty red on white print--now a delightful stain-hiding red on red!  Thank you to Lynne and Annie!

ROSIE CENTER

In Oregon, we're lucky to have a relatively new nonprofit providing free tampons, pads and cups to homeless women in Lane, Linn and Benton Counties.  They've also started sending supplies to a community in India.   The volunteers at Rosie are university and high school students.  Rosie's headquarters is upstairs at St.Vinnie's First Place by South Eugene High School. 

For homeless women, life is especially tough during their periods.   This video gives a glimpse of that. 

I've learned that menstrual supplies are much appreciated donations at local food banks serving low-income folks.  You might keep that in mind for the next canned food drive.  I also make deliveries to Food for Lane County when I have a boxful or two to donate--so feel free to bring boxes of tampons, etc., to a workday.

TRAVELING?

In the past, I've mentioned that we're always delighted to hear of somebody traveling out of the country, able to check a bag or two of DFG  supplies.  In the past month, people traveling to four countries have contacted me, and I've been in touch with DFG volunteers in South Africa and New Zealand who are delighted at the prospect of being able to access materials at our much lower prices, with no shipping expense.  We've also got people going to Kenya and Peru in the summer, but I haven't set up those contacts yet.  What typically happens is the local meets you at the airport or your hotel, and takes what you brought in one of our duffel bags. We hope you can then fold up the duffel and bring it back for the next batch to be taken abroad.

THE FIRST ASSEMBLY

The Makindu Children's Program notified me that they unexpectedly  had someone leaving for Kenya, able to take a 50-pound duffel of the kits, on March 3rd--our regular workday and planned Makindu kit assembly day.  So on March 1, my friends Kathy, Sandra and Noel and I assembled the first batch of kits which were winging their way to Kenya as we put together the rest on  Saturday.

Each of the 250 bags we sent to Kenya is unique, so there's no chance of the girls mixing up something of such a personal nature.

I've been told by a couple of people who have distributed our kits, that these are the nicest things the girls have ever had.  And in many cases, the first new items.  This is why I want each one to be as perfect and beautiful as we can possibly make it.

WHAT A WAY TO SPEND A BIRTHDAY!

It was a grand day!  Glenda and I celebrated our March 3rd birthdays  at our Days for Girls workday, eating chocolate cake from Sweet Life, and receiving lots of presents (and checks) for our DFG kits. Thank you all for making it such a fun and productive time!

Thank you for your wonderful generosity!  

Some even came with a festive ribbon!

We had fun party games too--some called them sewing, serging, pressing, pinning, cutting, folding and snapping.   The afternoon party events included assembling a couple hundred kits going to the Makindu Children's Program in Kenya.

NO PLASTIC BAGS IN KENYA

Last year Kenya's government banned plastic bags.  Trash is a huge problem there, so this is a very good thing for them to be proactive about.  However, it causes a dilemma for us, as we provide 2 freezer Ziploc bags in every kit, for the girls to carry their soiled supplies back home to wash.  In February, less than 3 weeks before our kits were to be picked up to head to Kenya, Days for Girls finally announced what they'd come up with as a substitute for plastic bags in Kenya.  We were to make little bags out of moisture-proof PUL as a replacement for the Ziplocs.  We needed 250, fast!!

I took a deep breath, used some coupons to buy many yards of the heavier, colorful PUL, gathered a group of our sewers and we went to work.  Five other Days for Girls chapters in Oregon and elsewhere also volunteered to make some and we got the 250 bags completed in time to pack the kits on March 1st and 3rd.  I continue to be amazed and thankful for how everyone pitches in for our common goal.  I didn't even ask for outside help--I just posted on our DFG leaders group that I was overwhelmed at our time crunch, and one person immediately posted, "We can do this!  I'll help," and others chimed in.  Incredible people--in our chapter and elsewhere!!

YES, OUR INCREDIBLE VOLUNTEERS

For those of you reading this blog, and never having been able to join us for a workday, it truly is an amazing, generous and fun assemblage of volunteers.  To our volunteers, I feel so fortunate to have this opportunity to work with you and I really look forward to getting together each month.  Thank you!!

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single minute before starting to improve the world.”
~ Anne Frank

THE FUTURE WE WANT

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). If you have time to wash, dry and press it, that’s greatly appreciated.

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.

PINTEREST

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

A heartbreaking read from UN Women.

MEANWHILE, IN ARIZONA PRISONS

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.