Ripples – Social Action Council – June 2016

THE MOONCATCHER PROJECT

I just returned from Uganda last week. I was traveling with two dear friends and working with our wonderful Ugandan friend Phoebe to bring the MoonCatcher Project to another area in Uganda. Temperatures were in the 80’s, dusty red dirt everywhere, mud huts, hard working women and plenty of smiling faces. These beautiful people have captured
our hearts.

We set up a sewing collective having bought 8 treadle/ electric machines, tables, chairs, notions, etc. We understood each other with a bit of English, lots of hand gestures and constant laughter.

It was raining and the mud stuck to my shoes and I swear it made me an inch taller than usual. We moved between tented cutting areas; to cement garage sewing area making our MoonCatcher menstrual pads. The women were determined to learn quickly and get their sewing business underway. The MoonCatcher Project is paying the women to make the pads so every completed and approved kit brings some income to women struggling to feed themselves and their children. This was our first Ugandan “MoonBee” and it worked. We went to 14 schools to teach menstrual health and reproductive management and talked to over 1,100 girls. We showed them our pad and promised that our sewing
group would make sure every girl would receive one. These beautiful, soft spoken teens asked questions, shared their concerns and expressed gratitude for our desire to help them stay in school. They really want an education, understanding that it is a way out of poverty.

We have had support from so many people here at home financially and hands on with the sewing bees. We realize that without this we wouldn’t have been able to do what we did in Uganda. The MoonCatcher Project is a three-tier strategy: we deliver pads to girls to help keep them in school; we provide an education about menstruation and reproductive health; and we provide employment for women who need jobs to support their families. When all of us help, it becomes possible to make a difference.

As Phoebe says “A problem shared is a problem solved”

Thank you all for sharing in the solution.

Ellie von Wellsheim