Reusable menstrual pads to primary school girls.

My time here in Karonga was very meaningful. I worked on a project to bring reusable menstrual pads to primary school girls. Please feel free to reach out if you would like to chat about my experience as I am happy to.

We worked in Mwenilondo, which is an area near Karonga, in order to donate pads to girls and teach students of all genders about Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. We raised money for the project using the Gofundme website, by sharing the project with those we know. A Mother Group in Mwenilondo (group of mothers who support the community) learned how to sew reusable pads from a local trainer. The goal is for the Mother Group to earn money from making reusable pads when in the future other institutions may want to buy them. The pads they made during/right after the training were donated to menstruating girls at two primary schools in Mwenilondo, and local health experts gave students of both genders education about Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. We also built a changing room for one primary school so that girls would have a place to change pads and handle their periods while at school (girls often miss school when on their periods due to lack of pads and lack of a private place to change).

Within my first few days in Malawi, David (CEO) and I sat down and brainstormed what my options were for things to work on. I recommend chatting with him before you go about what they need help with, what interests you have, and what specific things you can do while there. Funding is a challenge as mentioned in his profile, and the organization didn't have much money when I came because there were no active grants. There are many important things you can do that are low/no cost, like playing sports with kids or getting wood and building hospital benches. You can also raise money for a project which is what I did. David shared the idea of a reusable menstrual pads project that he had already thought of and written a plan for, and I decided that was what I wanted to work on. We then set up a Gofundme to raise money to complete the project; I made the gofundme and then took out money to use for the project via ATMs in Karonga (my account's USD converted to Mwk) . We had used the google exchange rate which was not ideal in retrospect, because we could have gotten more Malawian money if we used a bank transfer since the bank exchange rate was higher. Note that if you do raise money in your home currency, make sure to check whether you will instead get a better exchange rate using money transfers/bank transfers. We then used the funds to do all of the activities I mentioned in the previous paragraph.

David is very passionate about community development and it's inspiring to see. He was very helpful with coordinating the many actions we needed to take to do the project like scheduling school meetings, arranging construction materials transportation, buying materials, contacting health experts, and finding a reusable pads trainer. He was really dedicated to monitoring the project too, and would go in the mornings by himself to make sure things were going well with construction of the changing room. He helped move things along a lot. For members doing the project, it was mainly me, David, and another board member named Verah working on the project.

I was the only international volunteer for almost all of my time there, so I got lonely sometimes since I didn't find it easy to make friends on my own in the beginning - but it was possible and I did make a couple - ask David for advice about making friends if you need to. If you like to go out to do things by yourself, talk to David about what you may want to do and he can share whether he thinks it will be safe.

Open communication with David during your stay is important, talk through any successes or difficulties you're experiencing. You may encounter challenges and it's important to be vocal about what you need while also being respectful.

I stayed with David and his family and they were so kind to me, I can't thank them enough. David was so helpful with showing me around Karonga. His dad always gave thorough information about any questions I had. His mom was so loving and caring to me, she really treated me like a daughter. She and Patience, their cousin, made amazing food and we had fun talks and they made me smile so much.

HUGE thanks to David and his wonderful family! Malawi is amazing!