THE Northern Action Committee (NAC) needs assistance to support underprivileged girls in Phoenix, Verulam and Tongaat.
Collin Maistry, the chairman of the NAC, said they embarked on a sanitary pad drive to assist primary schools in these areas.
“It has come to our attention that there are a lot of needy girls whose families cannot afford sanitary towels. So when the child is on her cycle, it often means she has to stay home and is deprived of her education.
“We decided to do something about this in commemoration of Nelson Mandela Day and for the duration of the month. We have thus far assisted three schools in Phoenix and one school in Tongaat. We still request donations of sanitary towels, so we can continue to spread this assistance.”
Maistry said a NAC co-ordinator assisted in the respective areas.
“If you would like to donate sanitary pads, you can contact the respective coordinators and you will be provided with a drop-off point. Alternatively, you can donate R5 to the committee using the reference ‘sanitary pad’ and the area you would like to donate to. We use whatever monies are collected to buy sanitary towels and deliver them to the schools.
“For example, one person donated 67 x R5s recently in honour of 67 minutes for Nelson Mandela Day. This money has already been used to purchase pads and we will arrange a drop off at the respective school.”
The NAC was established in June 1996 and is involved in a range of community projects, which include food hamper drives. The next drive is on July 22.
“We work with sponsorships for all of our projects. This can be a challenge as we can’t keep dipping into the same sponsorship pool. So we are dependent on what we can get. We also fundraise to supplement our means, where monies raised are used to fund our food hamper drives. None of our volunteers are paid, even the transport fees that are needed for our drives are done at our own cost.”
Maistry said arrangements could be made to drop off sanitary pad donations or to have them collected.
For more information or to donate, contact Maistry on 084 499 5765 (for Tongaat), Donovan Naidoo on 076 553 3480 (for Phoenix) and Navin Chunderkan on 068 185 9027 (for Verulam).