Pictured here is the president of this charity, Raziya Shroff, surrounded by kids of the village.

 

#1 Period Kits for Girls

Calling all sewers!  Please go here for details on how you can sew period kits for us:

==> https://thebaafoundation.org/raising-up-our-sisters/

A major issue for young women is not having the supplies or education necessary to properly manage their periods and as a result, they miss a significant amount of school which has a profound negative ripple effect.

With the generous efforts of professional sewers and other donors and volunteers, we’re working on a short-term and a long-term solution.

The short-term solution includes distributing a period kit to each girl in school who has her period (about 1,000 period kits in total). The kits include 6 reusable pads and a special carry-bag to the girls in school.

The long-term solution includes providing the schools a professional sewing pattern, sewing training, sewing machines, and a self-sustaining source of supplies so that the girls can sew their own period kits (each kit lasts about 2-3 years and at least 200 girls get their periods each year in this village).

Also, as part of the long-term solution, we’re helping a group of women living in the village who need work to open a business making these period kits and selling them to the women and girls in the village that can afford to buy them. Currently, all women and girls are simply using whatever cloth they can find which is messy, smells bad and is difficult to clean and dry.

This will provide a stable income to these women and provide a much needed product to the community. A portion of the proceeds from this business will go to supply materials to the schools so that the girls that cannot afford to purchase period kits will have the materials and instructions they need to make their own kit in school.

We’re looking for more people who sew kits. We’ll provide you the pattern and simple instructions. We have a place in Pennsylvania that you can ship the period kits you sew and we’ll take them to India and distribute them in the schools. If you can help, or know someone who can (you don’t have to be a professional sewer!), please click here.

We’re also in need of more donations to buy educational menstruation books and curriculum for the schools, sewing machines, supplies, to hire women in the community who can sew and who desperately need income (we’re training them to be instructors), and to host the career and life skills classes – “Power Camps” – for the girls.

If you can make a donation (in ANY dollar amount), please go to the bottom of this page to see how to donate. Thank you for your help!!

 

#2 Annual Career & Life Skills Education
for Girls in the High Schools

Each year we bring experts into the schools to provide a week of special career and life skills education to the high school students. Our programming is designed to help break the cycle of poverty.

Some examples of the programming we’re providing:

• Yoga

• Sewing

• Mehndi

• Cosmetology

• Personality Development (Strength Finder)

 

#3 Annual Health Camp

Each year we set up a 1-day free health camp. People from the area and all of the surrounding villages who are living in poverty and have limited access to health care, travel to our free health camp to get life-saving and preventative health care screenings and treatments. The major services we’ve been providing are…

• Eye exams and cataract surgery for the elderly

• Dental check-ups and take-home dental kits for kids

• Rubella shots for girls

Our 1-Day Health Camp, held in a large tent.

We work with a hospital in a nearby village to schedule groups of cataract surgeries and then provide transportation, food, and medications for the villagers who attended our 1-day health camp that need the surgery.

 

#4 Annual Tree Planting

Each year we plant around 50 trees and provide guards for each to protect them from animals. We also set up a watering service. This provides shade, helps with global climate change, and beautifies the village.

Planting trees.

 

#5 Facilitate Waste Management Program

We provided garbage bins to all of the local businesses and set up a pick-up service. We’re working with the local businesses to have them pay an annual fee for the service so that it’s a sustainable program.

Distributing garbage bins to businesses.