Girl Project

Imagine yourself, a girl just reaching puberty, a young woman, a new mother, or even a middle aged woman.  It’s ‘that time of the month’ and you have nothing to use to take care of yourself, except maybe an old scrap of fabric, dried grass, or leaves from the trees.  That is the situation that many young women in Madagascar find theirselves in.  If they live out in one of the provinces, out away from any town, they just have to make do with what they can find to take care of this monthly occurrence. 

Approximately 92 percent of the people here live on about 2,000 airy ariary per day, which is less than one dollar per day.  Many of the women here, even if they have access to stores with ‘lady supplies’, don’t have the money to buy them. 

Elder and Sister Richards, you can see why we like them!

The Humanitarian Missionaries here, Elder and Sister Richards, with the help of Temple, a young woman in our Ward who is preparing to go on her mission in April, have been working on the GIRL PROJECT.  They have let me be involved in the planning, buying, and continuation of this project. 

We are making Girl Kits.   

We bought some really nice, soft flannel, cut it into 10x20 inch strips and hem around the edges; these they will fold up and wear inside their panties when needed.  Each kit has 8 of these fabric panels, a zip lock bag for storage, a pair of panties (because some of the girls out in the provinces don’t have any), and some laundry soap.  We found some cute little zippered bags to put everything in. 

The first place they are implementing this project is in Monandona, this is a little town down south of Antsirabe, where the Todds are.  Monandona is a little town that doesn’t have electricity, but they do have a great Branch and awesome leaders.  

To start with we bought 125 meters of flannel, big cones of thread, four hand-crank sewing machines and the panties and bags to take to Monandona. 

 They have the sewing machines set up in the classroom building at the Church and take turns sewing and putting the kits together.   

We were down there a couple of weeks ago and they have made and given out 150 of these kits.  The women and girls and thrilled with them!