Gender Equality Zimbabwe Project #9448

Teach Zimbabwe Women to Provide Feminine Hygiene

by Days for Girls International

Project Report | Aug 24, 2012
Meet Kgotso... one of many your support empowers

By Celeste Mergens | Executive Director

Kgotso

Thanks in part to your support, we just returned a few weeks ago from Zimbabwe. We were able to follow up to confirm the results of DfG kits and training while also doing more training and advocacy. We were so pleased to see all of the positive effects. Here are some highlights: Meet 11 yr old Kgotso (Second from the left in the photo. Prounounced Go-tso). She doesn't define herself as an orphan since she got her kit and training last year, she sees herself as an advocate for DFG and since she heard about it has been helping others to make their own kits. She learned about DFGZ when Ambassadors of Women's Health traveled to Nzilikazi to teach a girls club of 200 (200!) Kgotso no longer has to miss school and she wants to share. She is an innovator too. She used her PUL scraps to make a tiny bag for a single liner to take to the latrine during school. Others started making them too. Today she continues to hold DFG meetings at her school.

"Dignity can not wait." The Honorable Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe; Vice President of the Movement for Democratic Change, Thokozani Khupe, was in absolute support of DfG when we met with her and spoke so eloquently about the importance of empowering girls with sanitary solutions saying, "Even I have suffered this as a girl." Such important connections to discuss how to ensure every girl in the world has access to hygiene happened thanks to DfG supporters like YOU!

One of the stops to distribute kits, conduct training and teach about health and hygiene was at the King George the VI School for special needs girls. We met the amazing students and faculty there as we shared an hour of reproductive health discussion preparing to for them to make a few of their own liners to supplement their kits the following week. The photo we included is one of the translator was signing as fast as she could and trust us, signing words she had never signed before, all about reproductive health and safety. The girls had questions that went on for 1/2 hour of spirited inquiry. Postnatal shields were made for those in wheelchairs so they have the comfort of fewer pressure spots and broader coverage. Thanks to DfG volunteers we had kits with us and only had to customize and repack a bit. Ambassadors of Women's Health trained last expedition took groups of 10 students each and taught them how to make their own liners.

We met with several of the original trainers from October to follow up on their accomplishments since we left and over and over their stories and results were impressive. This one had a truly amazing story to tell. Not only has she been training others how to make the kits, but she has been training a group of leaders in her community to train others. We had come expecting to gather stories from those with kits and were welcomed by these magnificent women ready to learn more about becoming trainers themselves. Their dedication and enthusiasm for Days for Girls was truly heart warming. Four youth were among the trainers. Each of these girls and women are standing up and helping Zimbabwe progress forward through the empowerment women and girls!

There's more that we'd love to share, there were SO many amazing moments, so many phenomenal girls and we just want to let you know how much of an inpact your support is making. Thank you! We are scheduled to return in January to help Zimbabwe DfG become even more self-sufficient. You can follow stories and updates on Facebook.com/DaysforGirls. It's working! Imagine when we are ready to apply what we learn in Zimbabwe, Kenya and Uganda to other nations around the world. What do you think? Do you see a way that we could work together to create even wider support?

The translator at King George VI

She teaches her community to teach others

Dignity can not wait

She loves her kit and teaches others about them

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