Days for Girls Kits Distribution in Kasote Namibia

When this Peace Corps journey first began, in the days of Pre-Service Training, one of our activities included making a bubble chart of what makes us who we are. We drew one bubble in the middle with our names, with other bubbles attached to it with different parts of our identity. For exam, the things that I thought made me who I was were things like being Hispanic, an interpreter, a fit girl, a runner, outdoorsy, and a few different things. Not a single bubble said female. If I were to remake that chart now, a female would probably be one of my largest bubbles.



Sometimes here it seems like being a female gives you odds stacked against you. Girls are way more likely to drop out of school over the boys, for various reasons. When I first arrived to site and was trying to gauge what exactly I would take on as Secondary Projects a Girls Club was quickly one of the first projects to come to mind. Since then, Girl's Club has turned out to be one of my favorite parts of service!! One day, the LifeSkills teacher, Mrs.Muronga pulled me aside to tell me about a serious problem we have in Kasote. There is literally no where in the village for girls to get sanitary pads. Some families can afford to go to town to buy these items, but majority can not. Several girls reported  using rolled up tissue, mattress cushion, and traditional leaves as "homemade" pads. Not the most sanitary option, which would sometimes lead to infections. She asked me if I had any ideas of anything we can do about this. After doing some research I found this great program, Days For Girls. They had worked with other Peace Corps Volunteers in Namibia supplying kits of reusable, sanitary, effective cloth pads. The tricky part was funding them, and getting them to Namibia. Santa Fe Community Yoga and Personal Trainer Fred Martinez covered the fee for the pads, along with some of the shipping fees. Some wonderful individuals also helped ship these amazing kits for the girls. Please check out this amazing video of Kasote's need for the kits, and the distribution.