The Sunday News
Health Reporter
A LUPANE businesswoman has donated sanitary wear to local girls in a bid to keep them in school as some would not attend classes due to their failure to purchase them.
Ms Debra Dube through proceeds from her late father’s business in Lupane and other areas, managed to buy 320 packets of sanitary wear that were handed over to the beneficiaries through DFID funded Improved Gender Attitudes, Transition and Education outcomes (IGATE) project, led by World Vision. IGATE communications and reporting officer Ms Rumbidzai Marime said the move would help the girls that were facing challenges in buying the sanitary wear.
“Moulded by the proceeds of her late father’s business in Lupane and other districts, Ms Dube has seen both sides of the world, prosperity and paucity. She and a friend generously donated 320 packets of sanitary wear to be distributed by World Vision’s IGATE Project, to out of school girls attending Community Based Education (CBE) in Lupane District,” she said.
The IGATE Project aims to improve the life and chances of marginalised girls and boys by supporting them to achieve higher learning outcomes that enable transition to the next level.
Ms Marime said the project operates in nine districts situated in four provinces. Community Based Education is one of IGATE’s interventions, which is a community learning initiative for out of school children that seeks to equip school drop-outs with literacy, numeracy, entrepreneurial and other functional life skills.
A survey done in 2014, by the Ministry of Women and Youth Affairs, indicated that 20 percent of girls miss school due to period pain, 62 percent miss school due to lack of pads and 26 percent stay at home because of heavy flows during menstruation.
Ms Dube said the gesture was her way of giving back to the community.
“As business people who survive on the public’s support, we also have a responsibility to give back to those in need,” she said.
IGATE works with rural girls in helping them realise their potential and invites partnerships with local business people, Government ministries, civic society and others to join hands in filling the gaps that hinder girls’ progress.
