New Volunteers
Hello we are Adeline and Hugo and we are currently volunteering at Ni Hekima Pekee.
We are both 21 years old from Finland. We arrived at Mwanza Tanzania 6.5.2022 and we are staying here for two months. This is our first time in Africa and also our first time volunteering. So far our stay here in Mwanza has been really good. We have had both the opportunity to work and come up with new ideas together with the NIHEP staff and also got to explore the beautiful city!
So what have we been doing this month we have been here? Well, we visit 3 different schools in the week.
One is Lwanhima primary school where we work with disabled children. We help them with their tasks and support them. The two other schools are Sahwa and Luchelele primary schools. Here we have been teaching girls about keeping a healthy diet and a swell keeping good hygiene. The incoming weeks we will talk about puberty and menstruation. In the end we will be handing out menstrual cups.
The kids have been so welcoming to us and it has been a pleasure to be able to help and have sessions with them.
When we came here we knew a big issue for the girls is menstruation and that they often miss school when they have their period. This is because they do not have the right knowledge or protection for it. This problem became a big priority for us.
Adeline got an idea that menstrual cups could a solution. A menstrual cup you don’t need to use and throw away like other menstruation products, sometimes you can use one cup for up to 5 years!
This would be a more economical and reusable option.
The girls can also find it hard changing their pads at school since there is often lack of private toilets. This problem would also be solved with a menstrual cup since you only need to empty it 1-2 times a day, depending on your bleeding.
We wanted to change this!
We contacted a company and got a partnership with them that gave us a cheaper price. We made a fundraising.
Donation after donation came in and after only 3 days we had surpassed our goal!
We were extremely happy. We could now order a cup for each girl and also order extra so NIHEP can continue to teach about this subject even after we go back home to Finland. We made the order and now one week later we got a message that the cups have arrived and we can go pick them up.
We are thrilled everything went as planned and we will now plan the sessions and talk to the authorities so we can hand out the cups to the girls before we leave. We are happy with our first month here and look forward for the next one!
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