Every morning, many women and girls in countries like Haiti wake up and wonder if they’ll have enough to eat that day. They lack bare essentials like adequate shelter and the ability to work or go to school. But there’s one simple thing that can ease some of these burdens: underwear.
They live with little to call their own due to extreme poverty caused by environmental, social and political consequences. Panties will make a profound difference in the lives of women and girls by boosting their self-esteem and giving them the confidence they need to attend school and carry out their daily activities, said Kelly Arthur of ThinkPeace workshop for Girls in Saratoga Springs.
ThinkPeace and To Love a Child of Ballston Lake are pioneering the `Drop off Your Drawers` campaign to collect clean, unworn panties for girls in Haiti and Africa. The organizations hope to collect at least 5,000 pairs of underwear and already have around 1,000.
`Girls here just take for granted certain things like having clean underwear in their drawers in the morning. But in Haiti or Africa, girls don’t get to go to school if they don’t have those things, and incidents of rape for young girls is much higher,` said Arthur.
Arthur and her friend in California co-founded ThinkPeace to serve as a place for girls to look beyond their own little world and become empowered, not only to take control of their own lives but to help make a difference in the lives of their sisters all over the globe.
`I found there was this big hole that girls were being raised really not knowing about the world outside them, and as they got into middle school, it seemed to get worse. The issues became so girl-centric, issues they have with getting along with each other and the mean girls syndrome,` said Arthur, who is the mother of 11- and 13-year-old daughters. `My friend Liz and I said, ‘We’ve got to break this cycle and get them to think outside themselves more.’ Get them caring about each other and thinking globally, and maybe stop this fighting with each other because mean texting and emails seems like an epidemic. If we focus on bigger issues, things like the clothes they’re wearing, not fitting in or boyfriends are diluted and don’t seem as significant.`
ThinkPeace started as a week-long summer camp and has since expanded to include weekend and day workshops. During the longer camp session, the girls look at a different country each day and focus on the issues facing girls and teenagers in those countries, contrasting how their lives differ. Sometimes they do some cooking to taste things from other countries they might not normally try.
`We teach them how to take a cause they believe in and learn about it, become articulate about it and be able to ask other people for help in trying to futher their cause. They put on a benefit, learned how to publicize, get word out and what to do. They performed a play, made over a thousand cranes, learned about Hiroshima and World War II and the lasting effects for generations,` said Arthur. `At the benefit they had people bring underwear instead of buying a ticket and they collected about 400 pair that night alone.`
Afghanistan has been in the spotlight lately, said Arthur, and the girls are working with a group called Mountain2Mountain to send bikes to the war-torn country where girls aren’t always allowed to ride them.
`Girls aren’t allowed to ride bikes, which is a big issue because they can’t get to school or medical care if they need it,` said Arthur. `We talk about what that means, why they can’t ride bikes, the cultural and religious differences and what we can do to raise awareness. We had 12 kids riding about 24 miles each [Sunday, Oct. 3], and everyone came with a donation to go to Afghanistan.`
Another big part of the workshop is watching films about the atrocities of war in countries like Darfur and Iraq, often told through the eyes of a child. Arthur said the girls’ reaction to seeing such shocking hardship is intense.
`These girls have never seen what war is like or seen what it looks like directly in another country, so [to watch]from a child’s eyes is a really important thing for them,` said Arthur. `During the videos, some girls will huddle together and hold on to each other because they’re shaken and amazed this can be happening in a world they see as ideal. They speak up and say, ‘I can’t believe that’s happening, I never knew it could be like that, what can I do’ and that’s the biggest message we want them to go home with.`
ThinkPeace helps girls realize they have a voice and that the actions they take can make a difference, even though they’re `just kids,` said Arthur. To get that action rolling, the girls often put together friendship packages with toiletries, a small toy, flip flops or dresses and a handwritten message of hope, which gets sent across the ocean.
Eventually, said Arthur, she wants ThinkPeace to be grown all over the U.S.
There are drop sites for `Drop off Your Drawers` all over the Capital Region and more information about the campaign is online at www.thinkpeaceworkshop.org.
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