I’m Joelle and in 2001 I visited Zambia with a group from the church in which I grew up. It opened my eyes to the reality of poverty, the after-effects of colonialism and the disparities in our world. I remember haggling in a market over a pack of plasters and some tea tree oil for a carved spear and realising how important even seemingly trivial everyday items were to people who struggled to access them. Fast forward 20 years and knowing that people still find it difficult to access basic essential items, allowing them to live a normal life, makes me want take action.

Having come to know lovely Zimbabwean folk in my current church, I’ve been able to have important conversations about the realities of life for their friends and families back home. One Sunday Kennywell and I were talking about what could make a real difference to peoples’ quality of life in Mucherengi, the rural village where he grew up.

We all know from the work of many international charities that improving the health, skills or quality of life for women has wide reaching positive impacts on childhood health, educational attainment, family wellbeing and the community as a whole. Also having visited rural Africa, I am aware of the difficulty of accessing sanitary products for women and there are some projects that aim to help with this. The idea to start a cottage industry that would allow women to learn sewing skills and produce reusable sanitary pads, was welcomed by the folk in Mucherengi. We’ve worked together to think about what is needed and how to get the project up and running.

Currently women in Mucherengi and the surrounding area, do not have access to sanitary wear, which impedes their ability to leave the house, go to school, or go to work. If they do have access to disposable sanitary products they are very expensive and create a plastic waste issue in the village.

We are going to help the women purchase sewing machines including overlocker machines (to make the reusable pads more durable). We’ll provide a stock of fabrics and other items needed for the production of the reusable pads. From there the women will work together to sew these much needed sanitary pads, that will allow them freedom and dignity.

Below you can see some of the costs for the project that your donation could help to provide. In this initial fundraising, we’re hoping to raise £1,500 to get the project up and running. Your gift will provide much more than the physical items on our list and we will be sending updates on the project to anyone that is interested.

£135 for A manual sewing machine

£513 for An overlocker sewing machine

£81 for A sewing table

£110 for Sewing materials to make approximately 250 -300 washable sanitary pads