Sanitary Aid & Ladies Underwear to Malawi
Workshops at Kent College in Pembury – March 2023
Thank you to the Sixth Form of The Malling School – February 2023
A great big SALUT-Malawi thanks to the Sixth Form of The Malling School in East Malling for the donations they collected for girls and women in Malawi! As part of their Sixth Form IBDP, The Malling School invited Jacqueline Nunes to speak about the SALUT-Malawi project and its themes of period poverty, female illiteracy and gender discrimination. Moved by what they heard, a group of Year 12 students mobilised and led an underwear collection drive across the school at the end of the 2021/22 academic year. They gave their donations to the SALUT team last September and we packed them ready to go last month. SALUT is very grateful to The Malling School for giving us this opportunity and we are looking forward to collaborating with the students to raise funds, donations and awareness again this year!
Assemblies at Bennett Memorial School, Tunbridge Wells – February 2023
Students at Bennett Memorial School will be supporting SALUT-Malawi as part of their Lenten observance and we welcomed Jacqueline Nunes to present a series of assemblies over two weeks to all the year groups.
Bennett staff and students have supported the charity since 2018. We are very pleased to increase our level of support by making SALUT- Malawi our Lent charity in 2023. We will be fundraising with our Lent lunches scheme of a simple meal of soup and bread in addition to collecting donations of underwear.
It was good to hear about the wider range of initiatives that are part of the project, such as the solar lamps, which Jacqueline was able to link very well with our worship theme at Candlemas focusing on Jesus as the Light of the World. Students had their awareness raised about the issues of period poverty and the risk of sexual violence and exploitation that girls face in Malawi as they try to continue with their education. Jacqueline encouraged our school community to believe that we can help make a difference by supporting SALUT- Malawi, students were empowered with knowledge about the issues and practical solutions that they can contribute to in a meaningful way.
Our Year 13 charity prefects are looking forward to co ordinating the collection of donations and items have already been given in advance of the start of Lent. We are praying for a generous response even in these economically challenging times.
The Reverend Canon Rachael Knapp, School Chaplain, Bennett Memorial School
Expression of Gratitude from the Sisters of the Holy Rosary – December 2021
On behalf of St Mary’s Community, I would like to acknowledge the receipt of the basic needs, you sent through the Vicar General of Karonga Diocese, Monsignor Denis Chitete. We appreciate very much for the support you have given us, we don’t take it granted.
Lastly, we wish you all the best in your daily work. As a community we will continue praying for you. May the Good Lord Continue guiding you in your daily endeavours.
Yours faithfully,
Sr Ruth Ghambi Sisters of the Holy Rosary
St Mary’s Community, P.O Box 42, Karonga
SALUT-Malawi – Promoting the dignity, respect and self-confidence of girls and women of Malawi – 8th March 2021
Dear Friends of SALUT-Malawi,
We, the Team, are sending you all of our best wishes for International Women’s Day.
This is always a very special day for us because we launched our project on 13 March 2017 at the International Women’s Day lunch organised by Tonbridge’s International Women’s Network. We cannot wait for the day when we can all get together again for that wonderful celebration of food, music, dance and global sisterhood!
To mark International Women’s Day, we are sharing with you today photos of how our efforts here in the UK are changing the lives of our sisters in Malawi.
In November 2019 Father Denis sent us pictures of the pads and underwear we sent that year being distributed to the girls of St Joseph the Worker Primary School in Karonga by members of the “Mother Group”. This team of women, selected by the local community to accompany every “girl-child” in the school as they go through puberty, can be seen explaining how to use the reusable sanitary pads. They also give the girls advice on hygiene, menstruation and other topics that their society considers taboo. Their aim, like ours, is to reduce the high level of drop-out among girls at school.
We hope that this message brings you the hope that each of us can make a difference in forging a more gender equal world. Please feel free to share it with friends and family. Taking part in this project is so simple, but the impact for these girls and women can be tremendous.
We leave you with the words of Asimenye Mwalwanda, a student at St Joseph’s in Karonga:
“My mother would not afford to buy sanitary pads for me every month. This meant that I would not go to school or appear in public when I was in my periods. Thank you for coming to my rescue.”
Best wishes for the year ahead and looking forward to meeting you all soon, Alex, Angela, Claire, Maria, Rosa and Jacqueline
Good News reports:
November 2019: SALUT good news from Fr Dennis in Karonga
October 2019: SALUT good news from Fr Alfred in Matumba
March 2020
Here are the pads we received in our first order from Cheeky Wipes. In addition to our 35%, Cheeky Wipes also added free pads worth over £260. They have been such an avid supporter of our project from the start.
March 2019
Dear Friends,
We are the members of SALUT-Malawi, or Sanitary Aid & Ladies Underwear to Malawi. In case you missed our newsletters last year, we are the newest project of the ever-ambitious and ever-encouraging Malawi-Twin project of Corpus Christi. Just as the body of Christ is made up of many parts, each with its own purpose, so too the Malawi-Twin project provides a framework through which a variety of initiatives are implemented to support and improve the lives of our sisters and brothers in Malawi.
SALUT-Malawi’s specific aim is to provide underwear, soap and reusable sanitary pads to isolated rural villages where such commodities are in scarce supply. We have chosen this narrow focus because living without these basic commodities brings dire consequences for women and girls.
In many parts of rural Africa, a woman who is too poor to afford a bra is seen as an easy target for sexual violence – if there is no one to provide her with a bra, then there will be no one to stand up for her if she is assaulted. As for the lack of sanitary pads, for most girls this means that the start of puberty marks the end of their education. In these sparsely populated areas, a school located in a remote village must serve the needs of children from several surrounding communities. Students must walk several kilometres each day to attend class. For a menstruating teenaged girl with neither underwear nor pads, such a journey is extremely difficult, if not impossible. Maggie Nyoni, one of Malawi-Twin’s Coordinators who has served as Headteacher in a number of remote secondary schools, explains that “village girls […] use torn pieces of old clothes as pads”. As a result, girls gradually disappear from the classrooms, their education and potential cruelly cut short.
Education is the key to enabling families to break out of the cycle of poverty.
Father Denis Chitete
a mainstay of Malawi-Twin in Karonga
Several academic studies have shown that female education has been one of the most powerful factors in alleviating poverty across the world. Literacy and numeracy empower women to better care for their children and earn an income that improves their families’ welfare. In this way, SALUT-Malawi’s simple aim complements perfectly the many education and female empowerment projects that Malawi-Twin makes possible.
Back in 2017, the people of Corpus Christi responded enthusiastically to our initial appeal. We also began working with Cheeky Wipes who gave us a 35% discount on their reusable cloth sanitary pads. In the end, we sent 16 cartons of ladies’ and children’s underwear, reusable nappies and soap, as well as 50 packs of 5 reusable sanitary pads each. The response from Malawi was so encouraging, Malawi-Twin decided to make SALUT-Malawi a bona fide part of their family.
Last year we reached out to schools in the Sevenoaks/Tonbridge/Tunbridge Wells area not only to collect donations but also to raise awareness among students of the circumstances faced by their peers in countries like Malawi. And lest you presume that being denied an education for want of items as basic as sanitary pads is limited to poor countries, we should point out that what is now being called “period poverty” is an issue that also affects girls from poor families in the U.K. The motivation behind SALUT-Malawi lies in what binds us together as women across borders and cultures. As topics such as menstruation and sexual violence become de-stigmatised, discussion is replacing taboos and identifying problems that have been hiding in plain sight. Now is the time for solidarity as we seek to address and remedy the failures of the past.
Four of the seven schools we contacted responded very generously. Our sincere thanks go to the teachers and students of St Margaret Clitherow School, Sevenoaks School, Bennett Memorial Diocesan School and Tonbridge Girls Grammar School. Besides collecting dozens of boxes of underwear (including a high proportion for younger girls) and soap, they donated more than 40% of all the money we raised for the purchase of reusable sanitary pads. We are grateful to Reverend Rachael Knapp for allowing us to talk about our project to the Year 10 students of Bennett Memorial Diocesan School.
In 2018, we sent 28 cartons of underwear to Chiringa Parish, St Joseph’s Secondary School in Karonga Parish, Changoima Parish, St Montford Parish, and the Good Shepherd Secondary School in Njuli Parish. We also divided six cartons containing 216 packs of reusable sanitary pads and two cartons of panties in girls’ sizes between two secondary schools with large numbers of female students – Golomoti with 233 girls and Mkomachi with 171 girls.
While excellent news, this is only a small start. Our 2018 efforts reached just over 18% of female students. And for 2019, Malawi-Twin has agreed to help two further secondary schools. This brings the total number of students supported to 11,000. So, it is time to roll up our sleeves for 2019! And you can help us by:
- Spring cleaning your underwear drawers – gather up all those good quality bras, knickers and children’s underwear no longer worn and bring them to us. Nothing racy please!
- Donating new packs of underwear, especially training bras and sturdy knickers for teenaged girls. Remember these need to withstand a lot of washing.
- Donating soap. SOLID SOAP ONLY please. Liquid soap is of little use at the riverside.
- Contributing to the purchase of reusable sanitary pads. Cheeky Wipes is continuing to sell us their pads for £2.66, compared to the usual retail price of nearly £5. If you are a Corpus Christi parishioner, could you please make any cheque donations payable to “Corpus Christi Church Tonbridge”, so we get the Gift Aid.
- Bringing your donationsto one of ourcollection events:
- 6pm-8pm, Saturday 9 March 2019
- 1:30pm-3:30pm, Sunday 10 March 2019
- 6pm-8pm, Saturday 30 March 2019
- 1:30pm-3:30pm, Sunday 31 March 2019
- Encouraging your workplace or your children’s school or nursery to get involved. We will continue to work with local schools and nurseries to set up collection boxes for underwear and soap as well as donations for buying pads. We will also seek to engage with older students through presentations and discussion. Please contact us if you would like to organise a collection at work. We have flyers and a collection box poster that provides all the necessary information.
We will be accepting donations until Easter. If you would like to assist, donate or ask a question, please contact Maria Neves (07503663734) or Jacqui Nunes (07914771357).
Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you!
Sincerely,
Claire Churchill, Alexandra Lopez, Maria Neves, Jacqueline Nunes and Angela Saltaren-Ghent
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