Biggest Success Ever for Days for Girls, Simsbury Chapter

In September, the Simsbury Chapter of Days for Girls International (DFG) completed the biggest distribution in the chapter’s 11-year history. DFG’s mission is to provide reuseable fabric menstrual kits to girls and women where commercial products are unavailable or unaffordable.

That generated economic activity, as the kits were made using Kenyan workers and Kenyan materials in small businesses called DFG Enterprises. The photographs of the happy recipients put a smile of the faces of the people in Connecticut who made it all possible.

Of the total, 1,100 kits went to girls in three schools in UMC Reverend Pastor Kennedy’s rural area. The other 100 went to the clinic which handles maternity and other women with needs.  All the students in the three schools between the ages of 11 and high school, both boys and girls, were taught important facts about hygiene, self-care, and periods by educators trained by Days for Girls International. The education and kits help the girls stay in school consistently. Previously, they would miss days every month and fall further and further behind, sometimes with very negative long-term consequences.

Thank you to all who contributed to making this happen.  The money came from donations by our church members and others outside our church, and our connection to a United Methodist Minister and his trained educators.  The DFG Enterprise model up and running in Kenya is the ideal. Kenyans sew in support of Kenyans, creating jobs. The Simsbury Chapter sews kits that reach the many parts of the world where enterprises do not yet exist. Currently we are reaching Tanzania and Cameroon.

We meet the second Saturday of each month in the Annex, usually 9:00 a.m. to noon.  Come visit us or join us in this project.  We have a job for everyone even if you don’t sew! Reach out to Jan Baker for more information.