Voice of Africa Red Fairy Campaign

The Voice of Africa is a Registered NGO in Botswana and Zimbabwe striving to empower women and children. Our work include advocating for the end of child marriages, activism against gender based violence and access to quality sustainable education for all regardless of gender or socioeconomic class. Our latest project the Red Fairy Campaign seeks to raise sanitary pads for the underprivileged girls. In the 1 to 7 days of the menstrual cycle, girls without sanitary products are more like to stay home from school rather than risk spending a day in the classroom in the hopes of not being shamed. This is a lack of choice that masquerades as the opposite, because statistics show that 20 percent of rural schoolgirls do not attend school during their menstrual period specifically because they cannot afford sanitary wear. In remote areas of Sub-Saharan Africa sanitary pads are considered a utility for the wealthy, despite the fact that nature does not discriminate on the basis of socioeconomic status.

Due to the poverty gap in so many of these communities, girls have to become inventive to preserve their modesty. Many will line their underwear with cow dung, rugs, or leaves during their cycle, which, due to their profoundly unsanitary nature, can carry serious health consequences.

With the provision of just a few sanitary pads, we can keep a girl in school another week, month, or year longer. The scope for impact is enormous, and its social and economic benefits can be felt across the country and the continent. Together, we can keep the girl child in school.

Join our Voice of Africa Red Fairy Campaign here by donating pads you can help shape the girl’s future.