Now, more than ever, your commitment to ending period poverty is reaching some of the most vulnerable women and girls in Jordan. Together, we have accomplished amazing outreach with refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the past few months! We are overjoyed to share with you some of the ways your funds have, and will continue to make a difference.
Each one of these Kits represents a woman or girl who will not be hobbled by the burden of menstrual inequality. These Kits will give back days, hope, and dignity.
Maha Saqqa, Director of JMAP, shared: “When I was growing up, there were no trash bins in the bathrooms in school; no place to throw away pads. It is shocking to me that 30-40 years after I was a child that we are still struggling to provide girls with what they need growing up … [The consequence of ignoring menstrual health and the needs of girls is that] she hides or keeps quiet; embarrassed. [This reality] moved me to be a part of the solution, to partner with Days for Girls!”
Maha believes that if girls are able to get an education, they “will be our voices later in life. Education guarantees that they will carry this torch later in life.” Maha hopes to pass on information to girls so that they will understand their bodies and know their rights. “The Kits are practical, and solve the immediate needs, but the menstrual health education is what creates this change!”
Maha’s motto for girls is “She has a right to care for her body.” We could not agree more, Maha!
Thank you for your important part in ensuring refugees and IDPs have the knowledge, tools, and opportunity to care for themselves and those around them.
Thank you for your donations to the Dignity for Refugees and Internally Displaced Women project through GlobalGiving. With your support , on August 15, Days for Girls sent 21,001 DfG Menstrual Kits to Chad. We expect the kits will arrive in-country in early October. Starting in mid-October, we will be conducting virtual training sessions for 134 individuals (80 women and 54 men) for Ambassador of Women’s Health and Men Who Know courses. Those trainers will then conduct kit distributions (including vital health education) from late October through the end of 2021. Distributions will be conducted in 13 different refugee camps in Chad. This enormous project would not have been possible without your support!
I hope you take pride in knowing what this means to thousands of women and girls. Because of your gift, we are able to mitigate the negative effects of a number of issues surrounding menstruation and female dignity for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). The following are three of the specific ways your donations are bringing dignity to women and girls in refugee camps and IDP communities:
Problem #1: Disposable pads in a refugee or IDP setting are a temporary and often unsustainable fix. Disposable pads posed a challenge during lockdown because their use requires a steady supply of product month after month. When supply chains were disrupted, school-based distribution programs shut down, funding streams were reallocated, and product costs rose in some countries. As a result, access to disposable pad products decreased significantly. Supply chain, funding, and inflation issues are not unique to the current pandemic. Access to disposable menstrual supplies can also be affected by political instability, weather related disasters, inflation, and other health crises from which a region or nation may suffer. Any one of these issues can drastically reduce refugee and IDP’s access to disposable supplies.
Solution: Days for Girls pads give women and girls control over their own menstrual hygiene, month after month, without being dependent on supply chain issues. Once a refugee or IDP receives a patented Days for Girls Kit, her menstrual needs are covered for at least three years.
Problem #2: Disposable pads are often the cause of unfair stigma against women and girls who reside in areas which lack adequate infrastructure. Refugee camps often do not have sufficient waste disposal. If menstruators are not able to dispose of their soiled pads properly, their pads often remain in the communities for all to see. This creates shame, embarrassment, and stigma against women and girls for the otherwise healthy process of menstruation.
Solution: When a menstruator has her own washable, reusable Days for Girls Kit, she has no need to dispose of anything. She is able to wash and reuse her kit over and over. Days for Girls Kits are purposefully made to not resemble a typical menstrual pad. The brightly colored, heavily patterned components hide stains and resemble typical washcloths. So even if the menstruator hangs the components outside to dry, she won’t have to feel embarrassed.
Problem #3: Menstruators in refugee camps often struggle to access accurate and timely information about menstruation. Lack of access to sexual and reproductive health information for both boys and girls can result in menstrual stigma and taboo, unwanted teen pregnancy, and sexual and gender-based violence.
Solution: Days for Girls distributions include vital health education. Girls learn the menstrual cycle, hygiene, anatomy, self defense, proper kit care, and ways to avoid becoming victims of human trafficking. In our Men Who Know courses, boys learn the menstrual cycle, anatomy, human trafficking, and ways to support women and girls.
These are just three of the ways that Days for Girls is using your funds to support some of the most vulnerable women and girls (and boys too!) in Chad. It is our goal to end period poverty, even in refugee settings, and with your help, our goals will become a reality.
Thank you!
With the help of our amazing GlobalGiving donors, we are proud of the work we have done together in East Africa, bringing menstrual dignity to refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). And now, we are thrilled to announce that we are broadening our reach to include Chad.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, refugees and IDPs have been left disproportionately vulnerable. Humanitarian responses often lack a gender inclusive lens and therefore fail to recognize the need for menstrual products and support. The menstrual needs of women and girls often go unmet, perpetuating misinformation and stigma. Currently, this problem is especially severe in Chad, which is suffering from multiple overlapping conflicts. Besides the ongoing struggles with the Pandemic, refugees and IDPs in Chad are suffering from ongoing internal development challenges, chronic poverty, the impact of climate change, and a tense socio-economic environment.
In addition to the recently returned 115,000 citizens, Chad hosts Sudanese refugees in the east, Central African refugees in the south, and more than 15,000 Nigerian refugees from Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad region. Your generous donations are key to our outreach mission to these women and girls across all of these populations.
Using your gifts, we are currently collecting, shipping, and will soon begin distributing our patented, long-lasting Days for Girls menstrual Kits in Chad. Along with the Kits, women and girls will receive vital health education. Our health curriculum includes anatomy, hygiene, the menstruation cycle, proper handwashing techniques, self defense, and human trafficking. We will soon provide the tools and knowledge necessary to give a sense of control in a climate too often punctuated with chaos.
None of this would be possible without your generous support. Thank you for your dedication to bringing dignity to some of the world’s most vulnerable women and girls.
2020 was a hard year for all of us, but it was particularly hard for the world’s most vulnerable populations. For this reason, your support for African refugee women and girls has been so important. At Days for Girls, our mantra for the past year has been Periods Don’t Stop for Pandemics. Your support made it possible for us to continue to bring important tools and education to refugees in Africa despite the barriers.
Utilizing key partners in the field, 4,082 DfG menstrual Kits were distributed to refugees in Somalia in 2020. Similar projects are planned for refugee women and girls in South Sudan in early 2021. Target populations include displaced women and girls who fled their homes due to drought, food insecurities, and conflict. Besides menstrual health training, other goals for these projects include reducing gender-based violence against women and children and strengthening reporting mechanisms for child protection. A partner reported: “Receiving the DfG Kits helped women and girls feel valued, in the knowledge that something so beautiful was designed especially for them, ‘to help them feel appreciated.’”
Story from the Field: “Sahara [age 15] shared the challenges of managing her period in a cultural context that marks menstruation as ‘shameful’. ‘At my age of puberty, by 12 years, one day while I was at school [and] I experienced bleeding. The cause of bleeding [was] unknown since I was the only daughter of our house. I [felt] shocked and stress[ed] about bleeding. I was using my head cover and fabric materials for pads. One day, my mother gave me a piece of fabric, and she told me not to tell anyone about my situation, since it [is] shameful to discover the issue of menstruation. [At] age of 13 years, I experienced symptoms of pain in [my] lower abdomen … and burning sensation when urinating. I [went] to hospital and my doctor told me that I have urinary tract infection [due] to use of unhygienic pads during menstruation.’ With her new Days for Girls Kit, Sahara feels confident to manage her menstruation with dignity: ‘Now, I am very happy to participate in Days for Girls and receive this reusable kit.’”
Our work would not be possible without the support of our incredible donors. Thanks to your gift through GlobalGiving, girls like Sahara now have the tools they need to stay healthy and the education to make informed decisions about their own bodies. These girls can now lead the charge to help other women and girls in their communities to change menstrual stigmas, stay in school, and end period poverty. And thanks to you, all of this was made possible, even during a pandemic!
More than six months of the Covid-19 pandemic have shown us that girls and women across the globe need continued access to resources to help them maintain dignity during their periods. This is especially true in vulnerable refugee populations in Africa. The need for social distancing to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus has forced us to be creative in how we continue our vital work. But we can confidently report that our work and our mission have continued. This is largely due to your support in helping us continue. Thank you!
Much of our renewed focus has been on our social enterprise program; making sure our enterprise leaders have all that they need to continue creating DfG menstrual Kits in their communities and to refugee populations. We are proud to report that even amid growing unemployment in Africa, our enterprises have not slowed down. Our shift to including washable masks in our menstrual Kits has been a huge success; providing even more opportunities for our enterprise leaders.
Rwandan Enterprise Leader Ketsia recently wrote: “I thank DfG for upholding our dignity and helping us boost our confidence. DfG taught us principles of menstrual hygiene management and taught us to make reusable sanitary pads. … During this covid-19 lockdown, when no one is able to go out to buy disposable pads, we did not have any problems because we had reusables at home. That is why we thank DfG and we wish to scale our projects to reach many more women and girls.”
This is all possible because of your support and your contributions. Rest assured that the pandemic has not stopped us from creatively serving African refugees. Your donation to our GlobalGiving campaign continues to make it possible for us to reach Every girl. Everywhere. Period.
Thank you!
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
Make a monthly donation & get 
