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Sanitary Pad Drive
From left: Ruby Chikwiri (Advocacy Dept. Chairperson), Kristen Damons (Advocacy Secretary), Allesio Congia (Advocacy committee member)
A South African woman is more likely to be raped than to be educated.
One of the reasons for this lack of access to education is that many students can’t afford sanitary towels and have to make do with makeshift alternatives, leading to embarrassment, medical problems and missing of up to 20% of school.
The JJC kicked off our 2013/2014 term with a bang when our Advocacy committee collected 32 000 sanitary pads which we donated to the girls of Sgodiphola Secondary School, giving 476 girls 6 months of uninterrupted education.
The campaign wasn’t just one for a toiletry item: it was a campaign for education, by stopping unnecessary absenteeism. It was a campaign for dignity, by providing a basic necessity that any woman deserves. It was a campaign for health, by replacing unsafe alternatives.
Rhodes Park Cleanup
A man is walking on a beach filled with thousands of dying starfish. As he walks, he throws them back into the sea one at a time. Another person asks him: “Why are you doing this? There are thousands of starfish, you’ll never make a difference.” As the man throws another back, he replies: “Well, I made a difference to that one.”
On Earth Day 2013, the JJC went to Rhodes Park in Kensington yesterday to clean up its heavily polluted dam in order to play our part in saving the environment. If everyone did their bit and contributed even a small action towards environmental conservation, we could make a real difference and save the only Earth we have. Go to www.earthday.org to find out how you can help.