I've got your bum covered

Something that shocked and saddened me was the fact the many girls don't go to school when they menstruate as they dont have anything to catch their blood. This can lead to falling behind in education, dropping out of school and continuing the cycle of poverty. How sad to think that if they had some undies and a pad, it would make a difference.

Cambodia is poverty stricken. Bare minimum, and a lot of the time it seems that there is not even that. Denise said something to me which reminded me just how much I take for granted. And how fortunate I am. She said "Yesterday when I sent a new mum and her brand newborn baby home on the back on the motorbike, I dreamed that she had a pair of undies on and a pad between her legs."

Enough said.

So, I've been on a bit of a mission to get some undies and pads for these women.

I have been blessed to be aquainted with some pretty spirited people whose hearts are as passionate as my own.

The beautiful Jo has really gone above and beyond and organised a get together with some other wonderful women and had a craft day sewing cloth menstrual pads. In my mind, I was thinking they may do 40. Maybe 50. Definitely not much more than that! Imagine my surprise and complete excitement when it was announced that they reached the 100 mark!! A few days later, the number kept climbing even further! Once they were done, I got this little message from Jo:

"I'm so proud and ecstatic to announce on behalf of fabric, PUL, snap and cloth donations from Emily of Happy Nappy, Esther from Ferny Hills, Sarah MaClean, Sarah Leslie, Natalie McQueen AND the time and skill donations of seamstresses Loz Woods, Veronica INgram, Kintara Phillips, Victoria, Leah Timms, Ben Dechrau and Myself (Jo Dechrau) - we created together 155 cloth menstrual pads." 


So many cloth pads were created with the hands of hearts of these beautiful people! Hours and hours of crafting these beautiful bits of material for the women of Cambodia. I feel like I am bursting with pride!

Mil Islas, Paisley Ring (people who I don't even know, but are sharing their time and heart for this!!) and Sazz Langford also got their hands and hearts busy and sent me some of their own cloth menstrual pads.

In total I now have almost 200 cloth menstrual pads to take over to Cambodia!

Here are some photo's of what can be done when you put your passion to a sewing machine!

Look at all these pads in the making! Following 3 photos are from Jo. You can look at her blog HERE

 

Goddesses At Work!

155 pads!!

On Saturday, a work colleague of mine, who is going to Cambodia today (!!) to volunteer with LifeOptions came and picked up 100 of these babies to pack as she had some room in her lugguge! Those cloth pads will be flying to Cambodia right now as I type!

Also, I've been asking everyone for undies. They have been arriving slowly but surely in the post. Today my 2 year old and I counted them all. After counting it 3 times, (my 2 year old kept confusing me lol), I have had 141 pairs of undies donated to me to take over. How amazing is that!?!?! All those women whose life will be changed because they now own a pair of undies! I am still accepting donations up until around 15th June, so keep sending them in! I've got 27kgs of lugguge and i plan to use it!

These 80 pairs of undies were donated by one person!! Thankyou Sarah Shortt

Thankyou to those who are generous. Thankyou to those whose spirits sing to the same tune as mine. Thankyou to those whose heart is in the same place as mine.

So, women of Cambodia, it's not long now. I've got your bum covered!