along with our friends at Cranktown. Watch the clip here: Huru on The Doctors

June 1-7, 2013:  In celebration of our 5th anniversary, the first 1,000 Huru Kit donations made during the week of International Children’s Day will be generously matched by Micato Safaris!

What is a Huru Kit?

In a drawstring bag that doubles as a backpack, girls in Africa receive:

•  Eight reusable sanitary pads
•  Three pairs of underwear
•  Soap to wash the sanitary pads
•  Waterproof bag to safely store used items
•  Educational insert with life-saving HIV/AIDS prevention information

Huru Kits are environmentally friendly and locally produced in the Mukuru Slum of Nairobi, Kenya.  One Huru Kit costs only $25 – a small price to pay for the lives saved and the cycles of poverty and ignorance broken.  

Since its founding in 2008, Huru International has impacted over 300,000 lives:

• 80,000 + girls have received Huru Kits – helping them to stay in school and remain active at home and work
• 200,000 family members received HIV prevention information
• 20,000+ boys have attended HIV prevention education sessions
• 12,000+ parents have participated in education sessions
• 500+ schools have been visited
• 100 Kenyans from the Mukuru slum of Nairobi have been employed
• 20 community events have been held, providing thousands of people with HIV testing, cervical cancer screening and family planning services

Huru means “freedom” in Swahili.  Through the generous support of our corporate sponsors and individual donors like you, we have been able to give African girls the ultimate freedom by helping them to stay in school.  According to UNICEF and the Global Campaign for Education, keeping girls in school is the best way to protect them from chronic poverty and HIV/AIDS.  

To donate a Huru Kit to a girl in Africa or to make a general donation, please visit http://www.huruinternational.org/how-to-help  

“I opted to stay at home during my menses since I couldn’t share with anyone my plight,” said Belfine, a bright thirteen year old girl living with the hardships of becoming a woman in Mukuru Kwa Njenga, Kenya. For Belfine, and countless girls in Kenya, a normal, healthy development of the female body becomes a genuine struggle, creating embarrassment and limiting educational access and normal activity.          

Belfine’s father washes cars for a living and her mother stays at home with the children. Because of the strain on her parents to provide for her and her four siblings, she couldn’t ask them to buy her pads, knowing that food is the priority. To cope, she used old cloths. They soaked through quickly and she felt the only solution was to miss school.

It is a travesty that a girl is forced to stay home, unable to get around because of this deep fear of embarrassment. Unfortunately, this often leads to a low self-esteem and the hopeless feeling that becoming a woman is an obstacle to progress.

Fortunately, Belfine is one of the tens of thousands of girls benefitting from a Huru Kit. Not only has it helped her manage her period, it has encouraged her in pursuing her dream of becoming a lawyer and helping other children.

Belfine and her family are very grateful to Huru. She put it this way, “my mother will not have to buy disposable pads, hence she saves the little money she gets from my dad to buy food.” Belfine continues to attend school, creating for herself the opportunity to fulfill her aspirations.

Belfine’s story is being repeated across Kenya as Huru brings hope of perfect attendance for the whole year!

“My dreams are that when I grow up, I would also like to help girls who are just like me who don’t have money or their parents cannot afford the money to buy pads every month.”

Faith’s quote is the final word in an article titled For the Price of a Pad by Linda Villarosa, which highlights efforts being made by Huru and other organizations to stop the flow of girls missing school because they can’t afford the price of a pad.

With your support, Huru has provided a year’s supply of reusable sanitary pads to over 30,000 girls in Kenya. That’s a start to reaching the estimated 800,000 girls in Kenya alone who miss school every month because they can’t afford pads. We have a long way to go to fulfill Huru’s mission to ensure that no child be denied an education because she can’t afford a sanitary pad.

250 Dining for Women Chapters around the world host a dinner giving circle every month. The mission is to improve the lives of those living in extreme poverty by funding programs that foster good health, education, and economic self‐sufficiency, and to cultivate educational giving circles that inspire individuals to make a positive difference.

Huru has the good fortune of being a featured Dining for Women project this month. Check in with a chapter in your area and help Huru provide Huru Kits to 1,625 at-risk girls in Kenya.

Dining for Women is “changing the world one dinner at a time.” Pull up a chair and dine in for Huru!

Website: http://www.diningforwomen.org/

Pastor Helen Hands Huru Kit to Ndabibi Primary Students

Among the girls Huru has reached so far, there’s been a 96% decline in chronic absenteeism, and an 85% improvement in academic performance.  Now Pastor Helen is collecting names of other girls in the area who badly need Huru Kits.  We resolve to find the funds to get a kit to every girl!

Here are the UN’s Ten Goals for 2015:

• Sexual transmission of HIV reduced by half, including among young people, men who have sex with men and transmission in the context of sex work;
• Vertical transmission of HIV eliminated and AIDS-related maternal deaths reduced by half;
• All new HIV infections prevented among people who use drugs;
• Universal access to antiretroviral therapy for people living with HIV who are eligible for treatment;
• TB deaths among people living with HIV reduced by half;
• All people living with HIV and households affected by HIV are addressed in all national social protection strategies and have access to essential care and support;
• Countries with punitive laws and practices around HIV transmission, sex work, drug use or homosexuality that block effective responses reduced by half;
• HIV-related restrictions on entry, stay and residence eliminated in half of the countries that have such restrictions;
• HIV-specific needs of women and girls are addressed in at least half of all national HIV responses;
• Zero tolerance for gender-based violence.

The ladies at Dining for Women have a deliciously creative idea—a dinner giving circle, where everyone brings a tasty dish to share for a monthly meal, and pools the extra money that they would have spent at a restaurant.  They spend these “leftovers” from hundreds of chapters on great grassroots programs that help women in need all over the world.  Stay tuned to learn what’s next on the menu for DfW!