Days for Girls program supports women around globe
Stacy Collier, of Kaysville, concentrates as she sews liners during the Days for Girls at the Davis Applied Technology College in Kaysville on Saturday, January 31, 2015. The Kaysville Rotary Club and the Davis High Interact Club teamed up with Days for Girls for an all day service project making reusable feminine items for girls and women in Africa. This is Collier's second year volunteering with the project.
T.J. Jones, of Roy, and his grandson, Bryant Adams, of Kaysville, thread strings through the bags during the Days for Girls at the Davis Applied Technology College in Kaysville on Saturday, January 31, 2015. The Kaysville Rotary Club and the Davis High Interact Club teamed up with Days for Girls for an all day service project making reusable feminine items for girls and women in Africa.
Brittany Majors, of Farmington, pulls drawstrings through the bags during the Days for Girls at the Davis Applied Technology College in Kaysville on Saturday, January 31, 2015. The Kaysville Rotary Club and the Davis High Interact Club teamed up with Days for Girls for an all day service project making reusable feminine items for girls and women in Africa. Majors came with other members of the Ranches 1st Ward.
Genevieve Hill, of Kaysville, retreads her sewing machine during the Days for Girls at the Davis Applied Technology College in Kaysville on Saturday, January 31, 2015. The Kaysville Rotary Club and the Davis High Interact Club teamed up with Days for Girls for an all day service project making reusable feminine items for girls and women in Africa. Hill came with a group of members from Kaysville 8th Ward.
Days for Girls Utah Leader Ann Lewis, of Orem, shows volunteers the feminine bags and items that they will be making during the Days for Girls at the Davis Applied Technology College in Kaysville on Saturday, January 31, 2015. The Kaysville Rotary Club and the Davis High Interact Club teamed up with Days for Girls for an all day service project making reusable feminine items for girls and women in Africa. Lewis spent four years in Africa and describes Days for Girls "a force for good."
The Kaysville Rotary Club and the Davis High Interact Club teamed up with Days for Girls for an all day service project making reusable feminine items for girls and women in Africa at the Davis Applied Technology College in Kaysville on Saturday, January 31, 2015.
The Kaysville Rotary Club and the Davis High Interact Club teamed up with Days for Girls for an all day service project making reusable feminine items for girls and women in Africa at the Davis Applied Technology College in Kaysville on Saturday, January 31, 2015.
The Kaysville Rotary Club and the Davis High Interact Club teamed up with Days for Girls for an all day service project making reusable feminine items for girls and women in Africa at the Davis Applied Technology College in Kaysville on Saturday, January 31, 2015.
KAYSVILLE – It’s a subject that can be a bit embarrassing to talk about — feminine hygiene.
But nearly 1,000 people filled the rotunda, cafeteria and hallways of the main building at Davis Applied Technology College on Saturday to build hygiene kits and discuss ways to improve the lives of girls and women in countries around the globe.
Celeste Mergens, founder of Saturday’s Days for Girls event, volunteered in Africa six years ago. While there she received inspiration to ask the headmaster of an orphanage there what the girls were using for feminine hygiene products. The headmaster didn’t even know what feminine hygiene products were and said their girls merely sat on a piece of cardboard in their room for a week during their menstruation period, missing out on school until they were done bleeding.
Ann Lewis, President of the Utah Chapter for Days for Girls told the crowd that having feminine products is too expensive for many in the world. Some often use a special tent for a week out of every month until they stop bleeding, she said.
“These women and girls are losing weeks of their life, month after month,” Lewis said.
Another big concern, Lewis said, is many girls lose too much school, they drop out and get married young. “Those that do want to continue going to school during their menstrual cycle visit the huts men and school masters have set up next to the schools and are asked to exchange sexual favors for a feminine pad,” said Lewis.
“We never dreamed this was happening and nobody ever thought to ask,” Lewis said. “We realized this was a far-reaching problem that impacts girls’ and women’s lives. I have lived in Africa for years and I never asked about this.”
Women and girls are treated like the lowest class, Lewis explained, because they are forced to withdraw from daily life for a week every month, but the hygiene kits provide them with the dignity they need and can break the cycle by getting them educated.
Six years ago when Mergens founded Days for Girls, she found a company in Nairobi that donated a month’s supply of pads to villages in the area. However, she said, it was discovered to be unsanitary because the pads were getting thrown into latrines that then had to be emptied by hand or the used pads were being stacked behind the latrines in unsanitary piles.
Mergens began hand sewing kits using white flannel. However, she said, in many regions the stigma of blood is taboo, so girls were hiding them under their bed after getting washed, not allowing them to dry properly. Now the kits are made out of brightly colored fabrics to hide any blood stains while hanging up to dry outside.
The kits consist of fabric shields that snap around new underwear. Eight liners with waterproof diaper fabric, soap, washcloths, and a gallon-sized Ziploc bag used for washing. The kit also comes with a small drawstring bag that can be used as a backpack for used liners to be placed in the Ziploc bag, then soaked in a small amount of water. Then with the Ziploc bag placed in the backpack, it can agitate while the girls walk around for the day. When they get home, the liners can be rinsed out and hung to dry.
Lewis told the girls before working on the kits that the next time they pull out tampons or pads, not to think how grateful they are they don’t live in those areas, but to instead think about how they can help. “What a gift it is that you can share and help other people that don’t have this opportunity that will change a girl’s life.
Eighteen-year-old Jessica Whitmer of Kaysville was touched by the experience.
“I think it’s amazing for us to help girls who don’t have this opportunity, who get judged, who can’t go to school, and can’t have a life,” Whitmer said as she sewed up some liners. “Now we are helping provide them with this so they can have an education and a life.”
There were so many volunteers at the DATC that the Days for Girls leaders were worried about running out of fabric. All of the materials are donated or purchased with donated funds.
To learn more about the project, visit www.daysforgirls.org.
