Thanks to everyone’s votes, we have two new charities to add to the causes you support when you stay for a night at Change.
We’d like to introduce you to Unconquered and Be Hers.
The Unconquered Project
In the Western world, many of us take sanitary products and access to a hygienic toilet for granted.
Almost 250 million girls and women in India cannot afford hygienic sanitary products, nor are they aware or educated around menstruation.
According to a study reported in the India Times newspaper, around 70% of India’s 355 million menstruating girls and women cannot afford to purchase and use hygienic sanitary products. Instead, they resort to unhygienic methods of absorption – like ashes, husks, sand or old rags – resulting in a much higher rate of urinary tract and reproductive tract infections.
Cultural and religious taboos maintain silence around menstrual awareness and about 23% of girls in India drop out of school after they start menstruating. If they stay in school, lack of access to menstrual products means they can miss up to 50 days of school per year.
The Unconquered Project empowers local women to manufacture and sell affordable sanitary pads and to provide menstrual education – by women, for women.
Be Her Freedom
Be Hers believe that while they are free, they will use their freedom to fight for the freedom of others.
Every 30 seconds someone is trafficked. Children are exploited, women are sold against their will into brothels and men are forced into slave labour.
Through awareness events, social enterprise, collaboration and partnerships with global anti-trafficking organisations, Be Hers aim to end slavery once and for all. They empower everyday Australians to use their freedom to fight for the freedom of others with a goal to create change locally to impact and stop human trafficking globally.
100% of their profits fund purpose projects on the ground in Cambodia and Thailand while they also work with Australian communities locally to educate and employ those vulnerable to trafficking here and overseas.