Total underwear collected is 2,196,289
Thank you for sending us a pantastic 1,835 parcels in February.
Another busy month, with 9 organisations benefiting from your donations! The 9 organisations we’ve provided new pants and new & gently worn bras to since our last Talking Pants are:
- Care4Calais, Slough/Heathrow – 595 pairs of pants.
- The Beatrice Project, an organisation working with the Ntombi Nto Girl Child Network, a registered trust in Zimbabwe. They’re supporting schoolgirls by providing access to sanitary products. 300 pairs of pants.
- Demena, a charity supporting women in Northern Ethiopia – 1,263 pairs of pants and bras.
- The Nelson Trust – 386 pairs of pants and bras for their women’s centres in Cardiff and Swansea.
- Days for Girls (Cuddington) – 20 pairs of pants to be included in their hygiene kits going to Africa.
- Baby Necessities, a baby bank providing essential items to children in Romsey – 850 pairs of pants.
- Zambia and Malawi Community Partnership working with the Tafika Youth Organisation in the Mzuzu region of Malawi – 1,025 pairs of pants and bras.
- River Kids, an organisation supporting children and their families in the West Lothian area – 539 pairs of pants and bras.
- Ten Little Toes Baby Bank, an organisation providing essential items to children in West Sussex – 1,075 pairs of pants.
Thanks to your donations, we were able to provide 557 pairs of pants and new & gently worn bras to Life Support recently, a charity that supports people living in poverty in Chingola in the Copper Belt of Zambia. The organisation’s Zoe Gordon told us, “The women we support often don’t own underwear. And if they do, it’s threadbare because they have one bra and pair of knickers which they wash each night so they’re fresh for the next morning. I have observed this. In Chingola and the townships, there is not much in the way of options for underwear, particularly the bigger sizes, and we’ve struggled to get these. The women would really benefit from having underwear.”
In November we mentioned we had given 255 pairs of pants and new & gently worn bras to Safer Wales, an organisation based in Cardiff who manage community safety projects and support vulnerable people. The organisation’s Catherine Linnie-Godden told us, “Thank you so much for the donation – the women we have managed to provide some of these to really appreciate them. One of the women even took pride in taking time to organise and store them in our centre! ‘I’ve only had one pair of underwear as someone had taken my other pairs where I am staying…I can’t afford to buy a pack of underwear and being able to access these and a bra really make a difference, especially at the moment. Thank you so much!'”
8 March was International Women’s Day and, while we collect pants for men/boys as well as women/girls, we made a plea for women’s pants as without pants, women and girls can’t deal effectively with their periods. We provide pants to organisations that produce hygiene kits to help them manage this. Here are some of the things they’ve told us when requesting pants:
- “The majority of the girls have no access to anything when they have their periods except using old rags, and as a result they skip school” (For-Ethiopia).
- “60% of girls and women in Kenya do not have the means to manage their periods in a healthy way; they use ash, bits out their mattresses, rags, leaves or some just sit in a hole” (Freedom4Girls).
- “If a family has to choose between buying knickers or eating, they will always buy food” (Action in Africa).
It’s difficult to hear about the challenges around managing their periods that so many women and girls face, but for me the challenge is around making sure Smalls does all it can to support these women and girls through the organisations that produce the hygiene kits. Some of you may remember Joyce from Tanzania when presented with her hygiene kit and pants said, “Now I can go to school every day just like the boys”. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if more girls got to go to school every day just like the boys?
As always, thank you for supporting Smalls,
Maria
