A Million Comforts for teenaged girls
Programme hands out sanitary pads to disadvantaged pupils
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 29
B2015 UYING sanitary towels is something women take for granted, but the same cannot be said for disadvantaged young girls, who even miss school because their parents have no money for “such luxuries”.
Girl pupils at Tsako Thabo Secondary School in Mamelodi are among those who regularly miss about a week of school every month because they cannot afford to buy sanitary pads.
Hannah Simba, 25, and Silindile Ngcobo, 24, who tutor the girls on weekends, made an appeal on their behalf to Dis-Chem to sponsor sanitary towels for their school.
Last Wednesday, the Dis-Chem Foundation’s Million Comforts programme, Imbumba Foundation and the Cape Argus’s sister newspaper, the Pretoria News, delivered sanitary towels to the young girls, much to their delight. The girls received two packs containing 10 sanitary pads each.
“I am very grateful. The great thing is that it says to these children they are not forgotten. Absenteeism (due to not having sanitary pads) is a problem, particularly for orphaned children who cannot even afford the very basics; so these donations will go a long way,” said school principal Clement Gama.
In just two weeks, Independent Media, the Dis-Chem Foundation and Million Comforts have collected more than 400 000 sanitary pads countrywide.
The aim of the programme is to collect one million pads for girls who cannot afford them. The Caring4Girls programme will then distribute them to schools across the country.
Caring4Girls is an initiative by the Imbumba Foundation that focuses on sanitary towels and menstrual hygiene.
Siyabonga Sithole, office and logistics manager at the Imbumba Foundation, said in some schools, girls used cloths and socks to make do during their menstrual cycle.
“The one way you can say thank you to Dis-Chem is to achieve your best in school,” Sithole told the young girls during the handing-over ceremony.
Simba, a medical student at the University of Pretoria, had written to Dis-Chem for sponsorships, and as luck would have it, the foundation already had an initiative in place for the girls.
Lethabo Malatsi, 17, one of the recipients, said: “I feel very happy. Some girls don’t have this kind of support.”
The Grade 10 pupil said her parents were unemployed and she relied on her brother to buy her sanitary towels.
Meanwhile, Simba and Ngcobo said they needed funding for a camp they would like to attend on October 31.
“It’s a half-day camp for girls where we will ask professionals from the University of Pretoria to speak to them about career guidance and health issues,” Simba said.