Pittwater Friends of Soibada have partnered with Days for Girls and through our nursing volunteers we deliver hygiene kits and health and hygiene education to young women in Soibada.
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Over 40 volunteers attended our very first Avalon workshop for Days for Girls last Sunday, February 4th.
An amazing day of production!!
With all hands on board tracing templates, cutting, pinning, and sewing, the group successfully achieved the making of 1200 liners ready to be overlocked.
This is just one part of the process but importantly this will aid 150 girls upon receiving their full kit.
Each $10 donated upon arrival to the workshop yesterday, paid for 1 complete kit for the girls/women in Soibada, East Timor and will allow them to continue their activities of daily living with minimal interruption to their schooling or general contribution to the community.
Thank you so much to those that attended.
With the assistance of Days for Girls volunteers, we will continue to hold regular workshops at Maria Regina Church hall and will keep you posted.
Hope to see you there...
Days for Girls Vision and Mission
Days for Girls is creating a world with dignity, health, and opportunity for all, through sustainable menstrual care solutions and health education.
Our movement has reached more than one million women and girls — and counting! With your help, we can reach Every Girl. Everywhere. Period.
Visit: https://www.facebook.com/DaysForGirlsAustralia
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Pittwater Friends of Soibada Volunteer: Peta Wise
As a {non-practising} registered Clinical Nurse Specialist in Critical Care, a semi-professional freelance photographer and a mother of two young children, I found myself in 2012 asking what more I could be doing with my qualifications. Little did I know the answer was on my doorstep.
Both my children attended the local Catholic Primary School of Maria Regina in Avalon, along with Tamara Sloper-Harding’s children. It took only a quick query about how I could utilise my skills to be of assistance, before I knew that being a part of Pittwater Friends of Soibada was an avenue worth pursuing.
Now having completed my third trip, to Timor Leste with PFOS, I find that each time is only more enriching and more rewarding.
My role has developed from primary paediatric testing and pharmaceutical assistance to one of providing quality sustainable feminine health and hygiene education and kits for the girls in the community with the assistance and guidance of “Days For Girls International.” In doing so, I know I am helping give the girls freedom and possibility for growth, dignity and equal opportunities at schooling and in the workplace environment.
I am finding that through all of my experiences with the people of Soibada and the surrounding districts, that each sustainable initiative introduced by our volunteer team has been welcomed with open arms and open hearts. We have a lot to learn from a community who seemingly has very little but has so much to share.
Time spent crafting, photographing, talking broken Tetun and broken English is time well spent in this beautiful, mountainous, remote part of the world. The value of touch is so easily expressed when nursing and caring for a community such as this.
Pittwater Friends of Soibada is a diverse group of local individuals who are committed to forging a lasting friendship between communities on Sydney's Northern Beaches and those in the Central Timor Leste province of Soibada. Our key objective is to support the local people in their efforts to achieve sustainable development in their region. All our projects are initiated by the people of Soibada themselves.
Find out more at: www.pittwaterfriendsofsoibada.org.au
