Laura Lind is a volunteer at Days for Girls (DfG), an award-winning NGO dedicated to ending period poverty. A member of Soroptimist International (SI) since 2011, Laura was introduced to DfG at an SI convention. There the group helped assemble menstrual kits while learning the story of girls who stay home from school because they do not have sanitary products.
Through her church, Laura met Tatenda and Jerry Johnson, missionaries in Zimbabwe. They were working with street children who had no parents and so were living in the street. They started taking boys in , feeding them and getting them back in school. Laura asked Tatenda if there were girls that needed help too. She said yes, and Laura told her about Days for Girls.
In 2019, Laura and her husband were invited to go to Africa to see the work the Johnsons were doing. They decided to make a vacation out of the trip, since they had always wanted to go to Africa.
Once the trip was planned, Laura told Tatenda that the two of them could get trained to deliver the Days for Girls Presentation. They did that and collected as many kits as would fit in Laura’s car.
Jerry and Tatenda arranged for Laura to do a presentation in a small village outside of Harare, the capitol city. The day of the presentation, they were driven to the village. Laura made the presentation while her husband stayed to take pictures.
The DfG presentation covers anatomy and reproduction, cleanliness, and keeping track of periods. It goes onto discuss self-respect and not letting any male force you into sex, and it concludes with self-defense tips.
About 15-20 women were present at Laura’s presentation. They thanked Laura and told her that they had never heard any of this information before. Laura was surprised how little they knew about their own bodies, although several of them were carrying toddlers and babies.
