A Peaceful - and Busy - New Year

We just noticed that I haven’t written a blog entry since October. Where has the time gone? Happy New Year!

MoonBees have been in full swing making us step back for a minute and reevaluate how many of these we are capable of conducting. It’s always such a delight to see everyone and to do this good work but we’ve decided that generally two a month is about all we can handle. We continue to schedule MoonBees though!  Just contact me at mooncatcherproject@gmail.com if you are interested. Below are photos from the Martin Luther King Day of Service in Saratoga.

We have two public MoonBees coming up in February. Hope to see a lot of you next month!

Dining for Dollars, our annual lasagna dinner fund-raiser, was a huge success. We made nearly 800 lasagna dinner and so far we have raised over $22,000 with money still coming in – our best year ever. We were so happy to be able to contribute to the wonderful Schenectady Street Soldiers again this year. AND we are so grateful to our wonderful volunteers! Thanks too to the Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady (UUSS) for hosting us again. It really is the perfect space to pull off this fundraiser.

On the topic of fundraising - our Year End Campaign also exceeded our expectations as well as our goal of $40,000. We raised nearly $55,000 between November 1 and December 31 this year.  Thank you so much to all of you who made this happen.  This money will give nearly 8,000 girls the knowledge and supplies they need to manage menstruation with confidence and dignity.  We are thrilled!

AFRICA UPDATE

Kenya:  We have recentlhy partnered with Cindy Stiles, woman from California working to help  a Maasai village. One of the primary goals of her partner in Kenya is to help the girls and women of this community. The MoonCatcher Project,  with Cindy’s help, employed the MCP tailors in Kisumu, Kenya to sew 400 kits and deliver them to Narok Couunty where the village is. Jacky and Bella went together to deliver the kits and teach our curriculum (photos below). These women rock!

Uganda:  Phoebe has been in touch with an organization in Rwanda called Gifts Rwanda. Annie from Oregon reached out to us asking for guidance in making our kit. Phoebe said, “I can help,” and in February, she will host Annie and another women from Rwanda to teach them what we do.  GIFTS Rwanda's mission is to “follow the lead of the locals in Rugarika, Rwanda, responding only when invited, to help make real, sustainable change in that village. “

Thanks to Denise Stasik (the women who inspired me to start MCP many years ago, click here and read “How Did this Project Begin?) a nonprofit organization called ChildVoice is making MoonCatcher Kits at refugee camps that borders Sudan and Uganda. Not only are the girls there learning how to sew, but they will no longer have to worry about lack of access to menstrual products.   ChildVoice was founded in 2006 to “restore the voices of children silenced by war in northern Uganda. At that time, more than 30,000 children had been abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and forced to become soldiers. Of the children who were able to escape, many returned home to face innumerable hardships, from post-traumatic stress disorder to a lack of educational opportunities.  Since 2007, ChildVoice’s Lukome Center in northern Uganda has provided a therapeutic community for adolescent girls, including former child soldiers and sex slaves, war orphans, child mothers, and other highly vulnerable girls from Uganda and South Sudan. At the Center, girls are able to recover from the trauma of war and receive the educational and vocational training they so desperately need to rebuild their lives.”  We are so proud of this partnership.

Malawi: Our tailors just keep on going – making kits and delivering them. In 2023 those tailors more than doubled their output (from 7,800 in 2022 to 16,850).  They are quite impressive.

Olipa reports that the Lingadzi Primary School near Mzuzu (a school with incredibly few resources and one we visit every year)  was recently hit with some terrible weather. The small room that was designated for girls to use when changing their pads was severely damaged. Last year when we visited, we purchased buckets so that they could bring water to this room for the girls – the school didn’t even own a bucket! Without a private space and access to water, even girls with MoonCatcher Kits will have difficulty with menstrual hygiene.   We are hoping to help them rebuild and are waiting to hear what that will cost.  We will also visit the school again during our annual trip to Malawi this March.

India: Our partners at the Shashi Kiran Charitable Trust report that they have been visiting many schools over December and January to deliver kits and lessons - check out the photos below.

Cambodia: Our Assistant Director, Charlotte Mack, traveled to South East Asia earlier this month to celebrate her birthday.  When she was in Siem Reap, Cambodia she met a new friend - Maria Llanes. They got chatting and discovered they have a shared passion for helping children around the world. Maria lives in Switzerland but frequently travels to Cambodia to work with the "New Dream of Cambodian Children Organization"    Maria invited Charlotte to come see the school where her organization works and practice English with the children.

Charlotte had been carrying a sample MCP kit with her all this time, waiting for a moment like this one. After seeing the kit and learning all about MCP, Maria suggested Charlotte conduct a menstrual health lesson. Together they went to the school where they were warmly welcomed by smiling faces. Charlotte met with the director of the school, and discussed the possibility of partnering. She was then serenaded by songs the children sang, all lined up in perfect form, as the hot sun set behind them. Charlotte was invited into a classroom where she did an impromptu lesson with girls and boys! The classroom was small, and crowded. Curious eyes stared at her as she was introduced. Together they warmed up and practiced identifying different body parts, laughing and speaking English. After some time, and a lot of shyness, the whole group together said "vagina" "blood" and "period." Charlotte proceeded with the MCP curriculum and then opened up the room for questions. There were a lot of questions! Answering one at a time she could see the minds of these young children expanding right in front of her eyes. When the lesson ended they all took some fun pictures together and the kids gave Charlotte a huge pile of handwritten birthday notes! (Maria had secretly mentioned Charlotte's upcoming birthday to them.) So Charlotte received the best birthday gift ever - and one she didn’t expect.

We continue to visit organizations in our region to spread the word about our work.  Recently we met with  the Mohawk Valley Teachers, and Women Educators of Columbia County.  If your organization, club or group would like us to provide a one-hour presentation, please contact me at mooncatcherproject@gmail.com.

We are off to a busy start this year. We thank you all again for all you do to help us and we wish you a Happy and Peaceful New Year.