Campaign Story

Through your support, more girls and young women will be able to manage their monthly periods in a way that respects their dignity and supports their optimal contribution to the development of the nation.

Help us fight worsening menstrual poverty in Zimbabwe.

Sanitary Aid Zimbabwe Trust is appealing for money to support our work of fighting menstrual poverty in Zimbabwe, as many women and girls have been adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic to the end that menstrual products are now luxuries to them. Zimbabwe has been rated as one of the world’s top global food crises by the United Nations (https://uni.cf/3giNoPQ) and many people here can now barely manage a decent meal, worse still sanitary products by indigent women and girls.

Menstrual hygiene products are basic necessities which are critical for the attainment of the majority of Sustainable Development Goals; and the inability to access them violates many fundamental rights and freedoms of girls and women and also affects their ability to stay healthy and participate in society with dignity.

Due to the high cost of living in Zimbabwe, exacerbated by the adverse effects of Covid-19, many girls and women who menstruate no longer afford sanitary wear, resulting in them desperately resorting to using unhygienic means such as cow dung, soil, dirty rags, socks, tissues and newspapers, and other unhealthy means to manage the flow of blood when menstruating; which expose them to health risks, transactional sex and other risky behaviors. During the lockdown, we did our best to reach out to the most vulnerable girls and women with sustainable sanitary products but we are now overstretched due to limited resources.

Our organization, Sanitary Aid Zimbabwe Trust, is a registered charitable organization that is supporting underprivileged girls and women in marginalized circumstances to live healthy, dignified and productive lives through provision of free sanitary products and menstrual health education. We have so far provided free menstrual products such as sanitary wear, underwear, bathing and laundry soaps, pain relievers, among others, to disadvantaged groups of women such as homeless girls living in the streets, female prisoners, female refugees, girls in children’s homes, rural school girls, disabled girls as well as women and girls living in disaster relief camps in various parts of the country. Three years ago, Sanitary Aid Zimbabwe Trust was awarded the 2019 Power Together Global Award (https://bit.ly/2QncVgb) by the Women Leaders Global Forum in partnership with the Government of Iceland, for its work to end period poverty; and its founder Theresa Nyava was also awarded the Giraffe Hero Award for similar work (https://www.giraffe.org/theresa-nyava).

In light of the above, we are appealing for financial support to help us reach out to underprivileged girls and women in order to empower them in these difficult times of Covid-19 with proper menstrual products, so that they can manage their menstrual cycles in a healthy, hygienic and dignified manner while also ensuring that they fully participate in socioeconomic activities in order to also address the huge gender inequalities already existing.

With your donations, we will be able to provide menstrual hygiene kits to vulnerable girls and women in Zimbabwe. Each period dignity kit will contain 3 panties, a packet of reusable cloth pads (which can last up to two years), a bar of laundry soap and bathing soap. But since there are 3 million women and girls who menstruate in Zimbabwe, the majority of whom are living in poverty; we are also targeting to implement empowerment projects that equip poor women and girls to be in full control of their periods. The empowerment projects entail training women in rural areas and high density poor areas how to sew reusable cloth pads and organizing them in groups to conduct these projects. Each group will be equipped with start-up materials such as sewing machines, raw materials and training manuals, after a thorough training. We believe that doing so is a long term solution to ending menstrual poverty, which also gives girls and women the freedom and power to achieve their goals. Our plan is to conduct reusable pads making training for hundreds of groups across Zimbabwe and equip them to also diffuse the same skills to their communities.

Through your support, more girls and young women will be able to manage their monthly periods in a way that respects their dignity and supports their optimal contribution to the development of the nation.