Volunteer Christine and her sister Edwina visited Nurse Eva Ngowi just yesterday with several boxes full of personal hygiene kits for girls. We brought 80 kits with us this year; 40 for girls and 40 for postpartum women. Christine and Edwina worked on sewing and assembling them all year long and each kit takes 5 hours of work! In the past 3 years we have delivered well over 300 kits to the community.
With the DaysforGirls.org design, these kits are making a huge positive impact on the health of girls in the community and on the number of days that they miss school due to infection or simply because they are menstruating. Nurse Eva is keeping distribution statistics and observational notes about the effectiveness of the kits on the health and well-being of the girls using them. She, Christine and Edwina will soon interview several girls who received the kits in 2014. The kits are designed to be used for 3 years, and so it is important to assess how they have stood up to 2 years of use and repeated washing.
This is one of the most important projects which ABCD Canada is supporting and big thanks go out to Christine and Edwina for their efforts on behalf of the girls of Marangu West.
My sincere admiration for the patience and hard work to put together these kits to make uncomfortable days more comfortable.
Mira