Goods 4 Girls was started to seek out donors to sew or purchase new, reusable menstrual pads for donations to areas of Africa where these products are needed most. Providing reusable supplies not only provides a more environmentally friendly alternative for these young women (in areas of adequate water supply for washing), it reduces their dependence on outside aid organizations to continue providing for their monthly needs.
How neat is that?
It occurred to me that this would be something I could easily do with the kids and in doing this there was a lot we could discuss. Menstruation, social justice, sewing, feminism, cost of materials...It goes on and on. Never mind the virtue of making something with your own hands that will directly impact that life of someone half a world away.
Check out the site. If you're interested they post links to patterns and tutorials.
One question for the sewers though. I don't have a serger (a lot of the patterns call for the use of one). Would a tight hand sewn blanket stitch be a suitable substitution?
8 comments:
That is just awesome. Hopefully later I'll have time to come back and check out this site.
As far as I know, yes. Tight stitches would work. You can even double that on on machine. It works for me.
You could also turn and topstitch.
Thanks for the advice! I don't even have my sewing machine at the moment so I'd be handsewing those.
Wow! Very interesting, their "news" page is very enlightening, FAQs too. I feel a new donation fund being formed here, we donate monthly to various causes of choice.
That is a fantastic cause.
We have a charitable group as an offshoot of our main homeschooling group and we work on various projects with the kids. One of the things we did was gather toiletries that the kids bagged to be given to a homeless shelter.
On the list of necessities requested were tampons and pads. My mind reeled at the notion of that. It honestly had never occurred to me what a homeless woman would do when she gets her period. Of course they menstruate! I never thought of how women would handle that...How would I handle that if I were homeless?
That, more than most things, reminds me of how lucky I am to live the life I live.
Thanks for doing such a helpful and needed project. If I sewed, I would join you in this.
I just sent them $20. I figure it might be a cold day in hell before I have time to sew and it would cost me $20 to mail stuff to them anyway, so perhaps cash is a better donation option for some.
Re the serging, I've never had a serger, I've always just tight zigzagged the edges, then run a straight stitch too sometimes. Zigzag alone works fine for me most times.
Like Laura, I have never thought about the need for these. What a simple way to help.
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