Giving Back

Instagram, gahhhhhh, I love you, maybe a little too much, but sometimes that is a good thing. A couple of weeks ago I was doing the usual scroll through my feed when the lovely Shelley over at Spin Cushions (want to learn to crochet? Shelley has an awesome tutorial series to get you going!) posted a picture about a project she was helping out on and I thought “now this is something I can do!” The project is called Days for Girls and Cath from My Bearded Pigeon put a shout out into the instagramming world for people to help out. Days for Girls is about providing girls in impoverish communities with sustainable feminie hygiene products – reusable pads and washcloths, to keep them in school and work.

As their website states – Imagine if not having sanitary supplies meant DAYS without school, DAYS without income, DAYS without leaving the house? Girls use leaves, mattress stuffing, newspaper, corn husks, rocks, anything they can find……but still miss up to 2 months of school every year. Worse, girls are often exploited in exchange for hygiene. It turns out this issue is a surprising but instrumental key to social change for women all over the world. The poverty cycle can be broken when girls stay in school.

Now anyone who knows me well enough (and well all of you now to) would know if it wasn’t for the wonders of modern medicine a couple days a month would result in a lot of crying, screaming and withering around on the couch in agony for. While that stills happens, once those drugs kick in I’m back to normal, so I hate to imagine going through that with no access to feminie hygiene products. This was an easy project to get involved in, for about 2 hours of my time I was able to provide 2 washcloths and a carry bag that will help some girls out once a month for up to 3 years! 2 hours = 6 months extra school or work over 3 years. It’s definitely a worthwhile investment to me.

I didn’t need to buy a thing as everything was in my stash, beautiful soft cotton yarn and some nice bright cotton fabric. As the girls use the bag for everyday use I reinforced the tops of the side seams where the drawstrings goes to hopefully give it more strength! Hope the Days for Girls organisers don’t mind! Want to help out? – jump over to their website and find a local branch and enquire or there is still time to send stuff to Cath as she is collecting till Easter.

It’s definitely good to give something back!