NEW collaboration with Days for Girls to change the lives of mums
Since our Maternal Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) program expanded, our health workers are visiting new mums in the first days after giving birth. This means they receive support early on to breastfeed and help with other issues before they become bigger problems down the track. One major concern has been that rural mums are ripping up old blankets and using whatever they can find to stop their postpartum bleeding. After birth, women normally experience blood loss that can last days or weeks. Without sanitary products and education, they are easily house-bound, stigmatised and susceptible to infection.
We reached out to Days for Girls Australia (DfGAL), a nonprofit organisation that creates and distributes sustainable menstrual products to women all over the world. Three of their local Melbourne teams came back to us with an idea to partner in a new project to supply postpartum products to mums in Uranga and Boro! The Days for Girls Reusable Menstrual Health Kits (DfG Kits) include washable and reusable liners, shields, underwear and soap, all sewn in bright fabrics and kept inside waterproof drawstring bags. They are innovative, environmentally friendly and culturally appropriate; decreasing stigma and shame.
Coni leads our MCNH team in Uranga, and has already completed Days for Girls Ambassador’s of Women’s Health Education (DfG AWH) training, trialling the menstrual kits in the past with great success. Her team regularly visits new mothers, providing them with milk and cloth nappies, so she is confident that introducing DfG kits to the current provisions for new mothers will result in far-reaching benefits. These include decreased maternal morbidity, improved education and health literacy, and since the DfG kits are user-friendly and beautiful, they will also help to increase the uptake of antenatal services and result in safer births.
We would love our Positive Aid community to support this project by being involved in fundraising events run during our Australia-wide campaign around Mothers Day 2022!
We will be talking about this Positive Aid/Days for Girls Australia project at morning teas, sharing our stories and book at book clubs, and other events, so if you belong to a Rotary, sewing, church, book, social or other club which may be interested, please contact us.
This is an incredible opportunity to support new mothers in one of the poorest parts of rural Kenya, as well as strengthen local social Enterprises and collaborate with a hard-working NGO to help women globally.