Access to Sanitary Wear for 1000 Girls in Matobo

In the quarter under review, the HOCIC GlobalGiving team received a sanitary wear donation from the Angels Foundation Zimbabwe on the 5^th of December 2020 .The donation included packs of 25 disposable and 248 reusable sanitary wear.. It is worth mentioning that this donation contributed immensely in driving the vision of the GlobalGiving program which is to end menstrual poverty among adolescent girls and young women. The team distributed the disposable sanitary wear at Ngozi mine Squatter camp during the Ngozi mine Kitchen soup Week. It is of paramount importance to highlight that Ngozi mine is home to Bulawayo‘s largest rubbish dump which is the final destination for the tons of waste the city produces every day, and also home to over 300 homeless households (approximately 1000 individuals). It is further stipulated that most of the community lives on less than USD$1, 25 per day. The community also lacks easy access to basic health, education and sanitation services. As a consequence this shows that the reproductive health of adolescent girls and young women is not a major concern and therefore this leaves them susceptible to life threatening conditions such as cervical cancer, vaginal thrush and vaginal infections. Therefore in response to this the GlobalGiving team distributed disposable sanitary wear.

In the month of January 2021 the team held a virtual monitoring exercise with the 20 Sista2Sista girls from Matobo ward 11 due to Covid-19 National lockdown. It is of paramount importance to highlight that the adolescent girls had been equipped with skills to make reusable sanitary wear in the last quarter by the GlobalGiving team. In a bid to understand different challenges young girls are succumbing to during the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, the girls were asked if they are able to purchase sanitary wear and most of them responded by saying that they could not afford and also they were highly in need of sanitary wear and soap to maintain their reusable sanitary wear hygienically clean. In response to this the team distributed 160 reusable sanitary wear at Matobo Ward 11 in February and the beneficiaries were the 20 Sista2ista girls. The activity was set in motion by giving the young girls a session on menstrual health and how they have to maintain the sanitary wear hygienically clean at all times. The team also attended a webinars which mainly focused on building cross border relations and how to structure a grant proposal. The major take home from the session of building cross border relations was that this builds trust for the organization with other stakeholders. The session on structuring a grant proposal the major take home was that the projects objectives are clearly stated, referencing on all facts stated and presenting an accurate budget.

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In the quarter under review, the Access to Sanitary ware project team worked on Youth Casts in partnership with the Gold Youth peer to peer and Shoes2school. This initiative aimed to discuss issues that affect the youth in the form of podcasts that were recorded in one of the local languages which is Ndebele and English. The Youth Casts were facilitated by the Access to Sanitary ware program team who engaged with youths from various sectors. The Access to Sanitary wear team also went to Maphisa ward 11 to conduct a reusable pads training with 20 young women aged between 15 to 20. The training was conducted by a HOCIC community facilitator and she encouraged the young women to practice hygiene and not use dirty cloths and denim material as pads as these could expose them to vaginal infections. The HOCIC team also donated face masks to the young ladies and encouraged them to stay safe and move around only when it’s necessary. The team plans to hold a monitoring visit and also have another training in Maphisa, funds permitting.
The Access to Sanitary ware team successfully conducted a car wash fundraising event. The car wash was conducted from 21st to the 22nd of October 2020.The funds raised are for conducting the monitoring visit in Maphisa Ward 11. The total of $172 USD was raised from the event. It is important to note that other programs within the organization also contributed to make the fundraising a success. This includes Urban Food Assistance and Livelihoods, HOCIC Admin who assisted with refreshments to sale for the fundraising, Securing Rights Program, Lean Season Assistance brought in their cars for a Car wash