Sixteen-year-olds Lané Louw from Bellville and Laura Hoffman from Durbanville are trying to raise R29 300 before the end of September to bring dignity to school girls who cannot afford sanitary products.
They have partnered with Tygerberg Meals on Wheels in Parow and the schools Elnor Primarey School, Elswood Primary School and Elswood High School, all in Elsies River, will benefit from this partnership.
“In South Africa about 4 million girls between the ages of 12 and 19 have little to no access to sanitary products. About 25% of these girls miss school each month because of this. The majority of these girls use newspaper, clothing or bark instead of using safe and absorbing pads. Being a teenage girl myself, I felt the need to support these girls,” Lané says.
The thoughts of anyone having to go through the already horrible feeling of being on your periods and then not even having the access to sanitary products horrified her.
“I got one of the youth leaders at Tygerberg Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Laura Hoffman, to be my right hand in the Streetwise project as my venture is known. We chose ‘I will go Streetwise’ because God sent us on a mission. He showed us that there is a need for this project and that we need to find a sufficient and long-term solution, rather than a short-term fix.
“At the three schools there are about 360 girls between the ages of 12 and 19 and the cost of supporting each girl with two re-usable pads and one panty will be R79,90. In total we need to raise R29 300 to support all 360 girls. We are planning on handing out the products in the last week of September, giving us about a month to collect as much money as possible,” she says.
Lané and Lara are using Project Dignity, an organisation that supports girls all over South Africa, to source the re-useable pads. These pads will last each girl between three and five years.
Individuals, companies and churches that would like to support their cause can contact Lané on 063 675 2750.
