Merry Christmas from Pachamama
- thepachamamaprojec
- Dec 24, 2024
- 4 min read
Wishing everyone involved in the Pachamama family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Pachamama in numbers:
2,500 incredible volunteers have made
160,000 beautiful pads to support
20,000 people in
11 countries.
A MESSAGE FROM OUR FOUNDER, Ella
First of all, I want to thank everyone for your continued commitment to Pachamama. Together, we are really making a difference. I know that, because feedback from the people receiving our pads is amazing, because new volunteers are signing up all the time and because we are getting recognition from prestigious organisations that are helping to spread the word still further.
The world is feeling very dangerous and fragile right now. I am so grateful for what we are able to do, in our small way. This really is a community of kindness and generosity and I am proud of what we are achieving together.
AWARDS SEASON!
Better than the Oscars! We have received a couple of awards in the last few months – both of which recognise the impact of Pachamama and which extend our network and access to useful resources.
The Diana Award
This month, Ella was honoured to receive the Diana Award – which she accepted on behalf of everyone. It was great to receive recognition for our work on such a stigmatised and often over-looked issue. The Diana Award was established in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, and given out by the charity with the support of both her sons, HRH The Prince of Wales and Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex. The award comes with networking and mentoring opportunities and a valuable badge of credibility that will certainly open doors.
The .ORG Global Impact Awards
Back in October, Ella was a finalist in the “Rising Star” category at the Global Impact Awards run by .ORG. Ella and Heidi attended the awards ceremony in Washington DC. It was an incredibly positive and heart-warming experience, in the company of nominees and winners from all over the world doing the most amazing things – including the overall winner who provides yellow canoes to ferry children to and from school in the Philippines – children who, previously, had been swimming back and forth, carrying their books and uniforms in plastic bags above their heads! As a finalist, Ella is regularly invited to speak on panels and has access to training and resources of specific benefit to charities and NGOs. We were also awarded a prize of $2,500.
USA
As luck would have it, our distribution partner in the USA is located in Washington DC. Ella and Heidi took the opportunity to meet up with Kate who works with Food Justice DMV who support underserved Latino migrant populations and distribute our US-made pads. Kate had organised for a group of our pad recipients to join us and Ella conducted a focus group – an opportunity to use her Spanish! The feedback was excellent with the women extremely happy with the quality and comfort of the pads. Some had been relying on scraps of material to use as pads prior to receiving them and all spoke of the relief of saving money. We are very grateful to our US-based volunteers who continue to make and supply pads for this community. Our US volunteers have made a total of 6,160 beautiful pads!
LEBANON
Distributions:
Lebanon has been in the news a lot lately, as you’ll know. The recent war has meant that there has been more need than ever for period products – for our existing community in the Bekaa Valley and the newly-displaced women and girls finding themselves without pads.
We ran an emergency fundraiser which funded distributions of disposable pads in hygiene kits, providing basic supplies to women, girls and people who menstruate sheltering in schools, parks and homes in 14 areas in west and central Bekaa. It was then decided that, by collaborating with the NGO, Jigsaw, to provide water tanks, we could actually provide our Pacha Pads, providing a longer-term solution. This was a good example of how we collaborate with other NGOs in Lebanon to tackle period poverty in both the refugee and local populations.
In the first week of January we will be supplying reusable pads to another 600 mothers and teens during menstrual health workshops in Baalbek, an area highly affected by the recent war and Arsaal, on the Syrian border.
The big container!
Well, you know the adage, “It takes a village”?! There were well over 30 people involved in collecting, sorting, packing and loading the 40ft container that left The Meadows Shopping Centre in Chelmsford on the 12th November. Hundreds of people contributed with donations and businesses and schools around Essex supported us with sorting space, storage and collections.
We collected a total of 75,000 items of pads, clothing, shoes and blankets – including the beautiful hand-made blankets and knits sent by Pachamama volunteers – and including a pallet and a half of hijabs and abayas, donated by Muslim communities in Chelmsford, Birmingham and Bolton. But the dream team was made up of Helen, Ruth, Jo and a local asylum seeker who worked tirelessly most days to pull this shipment together. We couldn’t have done it without them.
The container is scheduled to arrive in Beirut and, once it has cleared customs, will be on its way to our friends at The Free Shop in the Bekaa Valley.
NEXT SHIPMENTS, 2025
Following incredible feedback from our trial with Kigezi high school in Uganda where 98% of students saw an increase in their attendance, we are preparing to send 18,000 pads on a large shipment to Uganda in the New Year – to Kigezi High School and to the Pass It On Trust community in Kampala. We will also be sending more to Pakistan and still have South Sudan in our sights, if that proves possible. What is certain is that we will continue to grow, to distribute our pads, to keep girls in education, to provide dignity and menstrual health education and to break down the stigma around periods. Let’s do this – one reusable pad at a time.
A special thank you to Big Yellow, County Linen and the Meadows Shopping Centre in Chelmsford whose support has been absolutely fundamental to our shipment to Lebanon.
Merry Christmas everyone!
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