It is beyond difficult for you and I to imagine that there are approximately 7 million young girls in South Africa between the ages of 12 and 18 years [living below the poverty line] who have to resort to using old clothes, rags, toilet paper and newspapers because they cannot afford sanitary towels. What is more shocking is that news24.com recorded the 7 million statistic in 2014, thus we can propound that it has increased immensely to-date. According to the UNESCO report, one in ten girls in Sub-Saharan Africa misses school during their menstrual cycle and by some estimates, this equals as much as twenty percent of a given school per year.
Due to this challenge, Nthabiseng & Molebatsi Matube and Pinky Diphahe decided to start a sanitary towel drive called “Dignity Restore” to reduce the rate of absenteeism and school drop-outs among young girls of Monyakeng. They established the campaign after the epiphany of the challenges that are faced by girls who cannot afford sanitary towels, and how this resulted in their inability to attend school during their menstrual cycle. Dignity Restore is not only an initiative that is meant to restore the dignity of underprivileged girl children that has been taken away from them by poverty, but its purpose is to empower young girls and to offer them an equitable opportunity of competing in this constantly evolving western-world. Their slogan of “Breaking chains girls are tied to” is the epitome of their true purpose.
On the 26th of December 2016, Dignity Restore had its first event at the community park known as Phola Park in Monyakeng. The purpose of the event was to give people an opportunity to donate sanitary towels to underprivileged girls and was spearheaded by the founders of Dignity Restore with the assistance of community members. Although events of this calibre are normally done in a formal fashion, the founders decided to use the festive season spirit to their advantage and organize a “bring and braai” with the objective of reaching a high volume of supporters, which was effortlessly achieved. Pinky Diphahe mentioned that the turn-out was more than expected because not only people from Wesselsbron came but people from Cape Town, Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, and Welkom too. “This is beyond my expectation because I have seen people that I didn’t expect to see here – those we don’t generally see eye-to-eye with. They overlooked our differences and came to the event. Weird enough, the majority of people here are men and they came holding pads, which is superb” said co-founder Molebatsi Matube.
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Amongst many, the chief objectives of the event included having games for children during the event. However, this goal was not attained due to the fact that there were less kids at the event than expected and one of the founders, Nthabiseng Matube postulated that they will definitely focus on improving their advertisement of children’s games for future events. Secondly, to call on societal participation to address this challenge that teenage school girls are susceptible to and encourage principles of Ubuntu (such as giving) within the society. People came with camp chairs, drinks and meat to braai at the event and most importantly, they didn’t forget to carry packs of sanitary towels in large amounts. Furthermore, to provide community entertainment for a good cause, The DJ line-up included the likes of Zar Dj, Oscar Tonight, Mole and MTK to mention a few, whose music brought people together on the dance floor to celebrate the success of the event.
Additionally, almost everyone at the event was wearing Dignity Restore engraved T-shirts and pink caps. Selling t-shirts prior to the event and at the event was another objective of Dignity Restore as another form of contribution [all proceeds were directed to purchase more sanitary towels]. Ultimately, the main objective was to initially collect 300 packs of sanitary towels per schools. 60% of total pads will be distributed to the 3 high schools and 40% to the 4 primary schools subsequently. The Dignity Restore campaign collected a total of 1380 packs of pads on the day of the event, which was “a great achievement” according to Pinky Diphahe. The handing over of sanitary towels will occur on the 17th of February 2017 at various schools in Monyakeng, Wesselsbron.
When asked about what they will do differently in the next event, Nthabiseng said “wait for the surprise, you’ll see what will happen then” and her husband, Molebatsi continued to say that “our main goal will be to approach and involve churches, businesses and other big corporations and organizations for contributions because we focused on individual contributions. We did well but this has the potential to grow”.
Whilst people were having fun on the dance floor and others were deep in conversations, I decided to engage with few people to find out why they attended the event and to give general comments regarding the event. The following are their respective expressions:
“I am enjoying the event very much and brought a box full of sanitary towels. I truly appreciate that there are more men at the event because in the past men were not involved. They have brought lots and lots of sanitary towels. You know what I like – the adolescent reproductive health and rights were mainly women issues. But today, there is a realisation that men and women are in this together and that’s great.”– Melita Sebokolodi
Manana Ngomba said: “I am here to support our young girls. As a woman, I understand how difficult it is to have your periods and not have pads. I am here to contribute and help young girls have access to sanitary towels. I would like for boys (from age 11 or 12) to understand the meaning of the menstrual cycle, this way they will stop making fun of girls when they are on their periods. I encourage teachers and parents to educate them. However, I am enjoying the event so much that I really don’t want to go home. We should have such events more often, maybe twice a year to help our young girls.”
“We saw this event on social media and we decided to come all the way from Rusternburg to support it. We could say that the organizers did a great job, and they must keep it up” – Tsietsi Mabitle & Neo Lekota
“We think if we unite as people of Monyakeng, come in numbers and make sure that we have this event monthly, it will be fruitful even more because girls have their periods monthly. We applaud the founders of this initiative, it is really well-thought.” – Selloane Pitse and Meisi Masemelela
Leepo Tswai said: “We should demystify our old tendencies that women are unclean and start caring as African males. Help them out, hear what they need and buy pads for them. We should stop acting like they are not part of our lives when they are on their periods.”
I think it is safe to say that this was not a typical charity event but one that was done in style full of kasi flavour. The entire Dignity Restore Team would like to offer their gratitude and blessings to everyone that participated in the campaign and to those that will still continue to support the campaign. “It wouldn’t have been possible without your support” in the words of Molebatsi Matube.
Food for thought: Albert Schweitzer (2016) once said: “The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others”.
It was very interesting to capture what the people of Monyakeng thought and felt about the event. They all came together and vehemently banded their efforts together to make the event a success. I was impressed by how the event was not concentrated solely on having fun but indubitably celebrating the contributions made on that day and how possible it is to eradicate this challenge in our own community. It emphasized Tata Mandela’s words of “it always seems impossible until it’s done”. Thus, I would like to encourage everyone to be in pursuit of doing good wherever they can, and not to be afraid to start something from the ground up. As long as you have good objectives set and you believe in what you have established, people will eventually start to support you. It doesn’t matter how long it takes for your establishment to rise, having direction and a clear vision matters most. And yes, some people will disfavour what you’re trying to achieve and that is okay – all you have to do is focus on the people that are there for you and the great change you will bring to those you are doing this for. Hopefully in 2017, we will see more campaigns like Dignity Restore rise in Monyakeng because if we don’t start with and take care of our own, who else will?
The event will take place again this year [date to be announced]. Donations are still accepted and you at home are encouraged to do your part.
For DONATIONS and more INFO about Dignity Restore, please contact/visit the following:
Twitter: @DignityRestore
Facebook page: Dignity Restore: Breaking chains girls are tied to!
Cell: Nthabiseng (071 7119 092), Molebatsi (083 3634 397) or Pinky (082 8940 208)
Article By Simi W
(Life is beautiful)
