How to Empower the Third World

I never really thought about what girls in developing countries do when they get their periods… and then I thought about it. 

It isn’t an awkward subject. It isn’t a women’s only subject. It’s a matter of equality for girls who have to stay home for a week out of every month during the school year because they can’t afford sanitary products. I’ve heard awful stories of a girl sitting in a hole in the ground for days until her menstruation is over and girls tearing off precious pieces of their mattresses to create homemade sanitary napkins.  

According to Femme International, menstruation is the #1 reason why girls miss school. KEMRI/CDC estimated that Kenyan schoolgirls lose 500,000 days of school each year. These girls fall behind their male peers, struggle with monthly humiliation, and it becomes especially difficult to have self-esteem as women loved and created by God. 

Women perform 66% of the world’s work, produce 50% of the world’s food, but earn 10% of the income and own 1% of the property. 70% of the world’s poverty is women. 

Empowering women means empowering the third world—and providing sanitary products to schoolgirls means supporting girls through their education and into success. 

Two sweet friends of mine, Kim in Texas and Consolata in Kenya, have headed the CRF work to bring sanitary products to girls in the third world. You can give for this issue at christianrelieffund.org/donate.