Happy Women’s day

In the last week, out of the 6 months I spent in Uganda, we distributed reusable pads to over 350 girls. That is 1750 reusable organic pads! Our biggest give away to date!
Next week my documentary with The Danish Family Planning Association will be released.
Here you will meet a young woman called Gladys, who has been using She for She pads for 1 year – these were her first pads.
Today I think of all the girls I have given pads to. Their very first pads.
It gives me tears in my eyes that they no longer have to use pages from old books, newspapers, old t-shirts, foam mattresses or small corncobs as a hygiene product when they have their period.

Here’s Gladys story:

We had driven a long way to meet Gladys. We had driven about 6 hours from the capital city Kampala.
Last I saw Gladys was back in 2018 at Kingdom Secondary School in Mbarara in Southern Uganda, where she got her very first package of She for She pads.
When we arrive at her home, she is standing with her mother, sister and little brother waiting for us.
She smiles as she sees me and says “She for She” and I smile even more because, it’s me from She for She.
Gladys takes a bench from their hut and place it outside so we can sit down.
I talk to her mother and ask her which difference she has noticed with her daughter after she got her She for She pads.
She gets tears in her eyes and tells me that she can now send her daughter to school while she is on her Period and that her daughter is happy again.
Gladys shows us her She for She pads and tells us that she looks after them very well and that she has had them for 1 year now. It’s her most expensive property, she says, smiling.
I have been working with this for almost 3 years and every time it touches me deeply that something I take for granted in my everyday life can be crucial to whether a girl gets an education or not! So on this day, I think of all the women who have paved the way for me, and I cannot keep calm over because now I have the opportunity to pave the way for other girls!

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