By Marilyn Bassin | Founder and Trustee
Yesterday saw the first of 2 handout days scheduled for 150 girls who will each get a year supply of pads which will see them through the entire 2017 school year, into 2018.
Girls from many different high schools in the area rushed to their social workers offices where we were waiting with prepacked bags each containing 165 pads. Some girls arrived breathless, they had run there. This was one handout they were not going to miss. I mentioned that everyone must look after this precious packet and one of the grade 12 girls looked at me and asked me if I was being serious, absolutely nothing was going to happen to a gift as precious as this one.
A mother arrived, so thin and clearly so ill. She couldn’t speak English but she handed us a note from her daughter telling us that she was on a school outing and in case she arrives late her mother is there to fetch. As mom walked away I wished I had a food parcel for her, she sure looked as though she surely could have used a meal.
Mpho arrived, she held on to her bag tightly as she explained what life is like without pads. Her mother passed away when she was a teenager and her older sisters brought her up in dire poverty. When times were good they gave her 10c to go to the tiny makeshift shop down the dusty road to buy a baby disposable diaper which she cut up in to as many pieces possible. Otherwise socks filled with sand, old rags and old newspaper sufficed. She had fallen pregnant the year before and had a little girl at home. She had returned to school to finish grade 12, she was lucky to be at one of the better schools. Having a year supply of pads in her arms was one of the most incredible feelings ever.
For the next hour happy laughter and carefree shouts could be heard as these girls who know only hardship, violence, hunger and pain were able to forget about their lot in life and focus on a gift given to them by people far away over the seas whom they would never meet, all of you.
Thank you to those near and far who had enough goodness in you to make this donation which has changed lives. Yes yesterday was an exceptionally wonderful day which will never be forgotten. Looking forward to next week…..
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