For the third year running, women from Portland and Lithgow gathered to pack boxes of sanitary kits to send to girls in Dili, East Timor.
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The kits contain reusable sanitary napkins sewn by the group from donated materials.
“Until the kits became available girls would have to take the week off school for their menstruation or not go to work,” Joan Applin, one of the project coordinators said.
“They have no sanitary hygiene products, or even a way to dispose of them.”
Each kit contains a washbag, underwear, two holders and eight waterproof sheets that slot into the holders to create a reusable sanitary napkin.
“It just shows how much we take for granted,” Ms Applin said.
The ‘Days for Girls’ project was inspired by a speech given by a former Lithgow police officer, Libby Bleakly, at a Portland Social Justice Group dinner in 2015.
Libby Bleakly now lives in Dili and has set up a PCYC in the city for young people to attend. Her speech about the hardships of girls and women in East Timor sparked the Lithgow ‘Days for Girls’ project into action.
So far the group of around twenty women, associated with St Vincent’s and St Patrick’s churches, have sent 500 kits to the Dili PCYC, which then get distributed to girls and elderly women through the centre.
After the women’s efforts packing kits at Fatima Hall on Tuesday, May 30, another 150 kits will be sent off this year.
Days for Girls is an international project that has so far reached 640,000 women worldwide.
- You can donate material for the project at St Patrick’s Presbytery or call Joan Applin on 0411 025 956.