News Release

27th August

PADS, PANTS AND A POUND ARE KEY TO EDUCATION

Young girls in Kenya and Zimbabwe are missing out on their education due to a huge shortage of women’s sanitary pads and underwear.  Every four weeks, they have to absent themselves from school during their period, missing 25% of their education and placing them at a huge disadvantage. The source of the problem is two-fold. First, there is a real shortage of sanitary pads and pants and this can then be compounded by high prices, making them too expensive for women to buy. For the sake of their education, UK charity Feed The Children is seeking help from women’s organisations.

“The main problem in our programmes is how much the lack of sanitary products affects the education of girls,” says Feed The Children’s marketing co-ordinator, Kim Tame. “Girls who are poor, lacking sanitary pads and underwear, just don’t go to school when menstruating, losing one week in four of their education.  As we know, educating girls in the developing world is vitally important, as educating girls educates their future families, raises their confidence and aspirations and is key to addressing some of the inequalities they face.”

June Leatheam, regional fundraising manager for Feed The Children in the south adds, “We’d just like British women to think of a situation where these items would not be readily available for them each month, and then I’m sure they will appreciate how difficult it is to manage without them.”

Feed The Children is asking women from organisations such as Inner Wheel, Towns Women’s Guilds and WIs to organise a meeting with a difference, or for working women, to have a lunchtime ‘get together’ to help out. The charity is asking women to pop a packet of pads, and/or a pair of new ‘pants’ and a pound in their bag and take them along to a meeting, where they can be pooled and sent on to the charity.  The appeal is for pads and pants only, NOT tampons.

The charity has teamed up with National Mobile Windscreens who are acting as depots for donated items. To find your nearest depot just ring June on 01256 787972 or 07525900671 for details or look on www.feedthechildren.org.uk/pages/padsandpants.shtml.