We need to grow!

Our 12-month mission: Let's keep those sewing machines whirring!

We did it! 16,000 Pacha Pads made up into 2,000 kits of eight have arrived in Poland where our partner, Yorghas Foundation, will send them into hospitals in Eastern Ukraine along with their life saving birthing kits.

Together, we achieved this fantastic goal in just three months. Whether you are sewing in the UK or elsewhere around the world, you are an essential part of this incredible team. Whether the Pacha Pads journey near or far, they are all going to people who really, really need them.

We owe a huge thanks to Shanice at Distribute Aid for finding us a solution to transport the pads to Poland from the UK and even bigger thanks to Troels, who is leading a convoy of mini buses to Poland, financed by EdenAid.org, taking our kits to the door of Yorghas in Kyrnica. Since March they have been driving aid into Poland every week and then driving Ukrainians back to UK host families. What an incredible group of humans!

What’s next?

The demand for our Pacha Pads is huge and is growing all the time as Pachamama becomes more widely known, with the media, with sewists, with refugee NGOs and with people working to tackle period poverty around the world.

This is our plan for the next 12 months:

April -June 2022

Ukraine! We just sent 16,000 pads made in just 3 months by you lovely humans to Poland, to be sent off to hospitals in Ukraine for new mothers living in conflict zones.

July 2022

We sent pads to Thessaloniki, Greece to be distributed by IHA, an NGO running community centre for refugees living in the Lagadikia refugee camp. Many of the people they support have received second rejections meaning they no longer receive money from the government and thus have no income to pay for food or sanitary products. We sent 120 pads for the 15 women who were dealing with period poverty.

July - October 2022

Collect for Lebanon: We are now working to fulfil an order for 14,000 Pacha Pads (1,750 kits) for FreeShop and Health Impact, Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. Along with the Pacha Pads, we will also, as always, send new knickers and second-hand bras, nearly new baby and children’s clothes and blankets collected from HQ’s local community and from anyone who wants to donate (please don’t feel obliged but we don’t want anyone to feel left out!)

October - November 2022

Next stop Uganda! ! Pass It On Trust, Uganda

We will collect for a month to fulfil an order of 4,000 Pacha Pads (500 kits) for Pass It On Trust, Uganda who support girls and people who menstruate in secondary education. Along with the 4,000 pads we sent in December 2021, this will mean we have supplied kits for all the communities supported by Pass It On Trust – the number of women and girls they said they would supply in an ideal world. It will be amazing to meet the need of so many women and eradicate period poverty for a whole community. I couldn't think of a better Christmas present!

November 2022 - May 2023

Pakistan! We have a new partner, the Abaseen Foundation who have been working for over 20 years to empower refugee women on the Pakistan/Afghan border. Shahida approached us last month and we met on Zoom. With 0 stock following our Ukraine send off, I went into the meeting with low expectations that we could do anything to help but withing 5 minutes of talking to Shahida, I knew this was someone we had to work with. Not only is she a really impressive and driven person, but the objectives and values of the foundation she works with are a perfect fit for Pachamama. We will be supporting refugee women and girls who are missing out on education on a monthly basis because of their periods and teaching young people to make pads themselves, to break the stigma and eliminate period poverty in the community. The need here is endless but to begin with, we are working to provide 10,000 pads for 1,250 people in May, 2023.

November 2022 - May 2023

Back to Lebanon we go! Simultaneously, we will be working on the next order for the Free Shop and Health Impact, we will be collecting other donations for the shop throughout the year.

UK and Turkey

Meanwhile we will be keeping up our small, regular distributions to GoodsForGood here in the UK and the Rainbow Project in Turkey. The distributions are small enough that we can ensure that we will always have enough stock for them whilst still making a huge difference to the respective communities.

Meanwhile, all US made pads will continue to head to Washington DC to Food Justice DMV where the need is endless. Pads made in Italy, the Netherlands and the rest of Europe will stay more local as we try and keep our distributions as sustainable as possible. The most recent distribution of European made pads were sent to Riga, Latvia for Ukrainian refugee women and we will play it by ear where the next batch go!

We need to grow!

This is a flexible plan in that, if we are approached by other organisations where we think we can help, we will of course do so. We want you to know who you are supporting as we go forward.

We need to keep growing the volunteer base so that we can meet the ever-increasing demand.

Please tell all your sewing/crafting/friends with a sewing machine friends and family and let’s see what we can achieve together by this time next year.

Meanwhile, a really massive thank you for making a real difference to the lives of so many vulnerable people. Whether you make eight pads or 8,000, you are tangibly and positively changing the life and prospects of women and girls. From your hands to theirs, you are giving someone five years of freedom from worry, shame and monthly disruption.