more activities, raising money for the babies' home!

Last week we went to ‘St. Jude trainings center’ to give information about STD’s, syphilis and the Afri-pads. Our main goal was to sell the Afri-pads, to earn money for the babies’ home. The money from the sanitary towels is spent on the babies in the babies’ home. We think that’s a very good goal, so we’ve tried as best as we can.

To prepare our presentation, we made some posters with keywords. Sometimes it’s difficult for the students to understand us, because of our Dutch accent but with the posters they can also read the information.

We started with general information about sexually transmitted diseases and the A-B-C-D formula. The A means abstinence; keeping away from sex is the safest way to protect one from STD’s. If one can’t abstain, then be faithful to one partner, that’s the B in the formula. The C stands for condom-use. You always have to use a condom; otherwise you can reach the D in the formula. The D stands for Death. When you don’t have safe sex, you can risk sexually transmitted diseases, which can lead to death.

We also talked about syphilis, because it’s a common STD, but most people have a limited knowledge about it. We talked about different stages of the disease, the symptoms, the diagnosis and the treatment.

At the end we talked about the Afri-pads. We showed the menstrual kit and we have explained how it works. The girls were enthusiastic, but a little shy. We asked the girls if they had questions about the subjects. For them, it was hard to ask what they want, they were a little ashamed. We have noticed that it’s not common for the girls to talk about these issues. We tried to make them comfortable with the situation and the subjects. We told them that’s common to talk about and that they could ask anything. It was good to see that some girls raised their hands and asked what they wanted to know.

We already sold one of the Afri-pads. One of the employers of the trainings center asked the girls to repeat what we’ve told about the A-B-C-D formula. If she answered correctly, he would pay the menstrual kit. The girl was a little bit nervous, but she remembered what we told, so she could explain it to the other girls. She was excited when she received the Afri-pads. That was really nice to see. The employer helped us to make the situation comfortable for the girls. We’ve learned from him how to talk about a not common subject with this target group.

A lot of girls wanted to buy the Afri-pads, but they had no money with them. We’ve made a new appointment for next Wednesday, so we hope we can sell a lot more menstrual kits.