Local Santa Monica Girl Scout troop recently learned about sisterhood by helping girls across the world.
In August Girl Scout Troop 28935, also known as ‘The Sunsets’ completed a service project to help Days for Girls, an international non-profit agency dedicating to providing sustainable menstrual hygiene solutions to the developing world.
Girl Scout Troop 28935 is part of the Santa Monica Bay Girl Scout service center of the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles.
The organization emphasizes a mission statement of sisterhood, and teaches girls about self-esteem, and how a girl feels about her abilities, a woman’s body, and a woman’s capacity to seek and meet challenges in the world.
Lisa Moore, assistant leader to the troop started a relationship with Days for Girls about a year ago. Since then their relationship has involved several Girl Scout troops to contribute to the service project, and most recently the Girl Scout troop in Santa Monica.
Days for Girls began in 2008 and since then the organization has made it their mission to contribute to the future of girls.
Girls in developing countries would sit on a piece of cardboard in their room for a week, once a month. There were never enough feminine hygiene products for girls to be at school.
Francesca Taylor, Troop Leader and Moore, said the girls completed this project as part of the ‘Sisterhood’ Senior Girl Scout journey in August. “The girls spent several months discussing and exploring what it means to be part of a sisterhood,” they said.
Girls within the troop range from 14 to 18 years old, and know how difficult womanhood could be, especially in a country where supplies are severely limited.
The girls sew pockets and liners for the pads that are sent to the developing world. They are now part of the kits that the girls and women receive there.
Moore and Taylor explained the girls spent a lot of time and dedication to this project. Days for Girls International, Los Angeles chapter, supplied the fabric. Taylor and Moore supplied the sewing machines and each girl had her own machine for the project. The girls completed an estimated 150 pockets and liners which will become sustainable menstrual hygiene products.
Each kit will last a girl or woman two to three years. According to their websites, this translates into over 115 million days of education and opportunity that would otherwise be lost without sustainable hygiene solutions.
The journey of sisterhood took several months, but the girls completed the service project within a few weeks. Now the organization has reached over 640,000 woman and girls in the 100 countries with Kits.
