Some progress

I contacted a couple of shelters/organisations that deal with women's shelters, and one got back to me!

http://www.impactforwomen.org.au

They seem keen on the idea of having cloth pad donations, and said they were packing up 150 hampers next wed, and if I'd like to, I could include a cloth pad in each one. One pad isn't going to be helpful, but we've got around 180 sets, so we could give a set to each.... but I'll decline...because:

1). I really wanted to get these overseas to impoverished areas - and that's also what assumption the other donators were working on.

2). Ideally the cloth pads should be given as an option to women in/leaving shelters... because otherwise they are likely to be thrown away and not used. So just putting them in a hamper is probably not the best way to distribute them.

3). I'm still hoping to hear back from Oxfam.


However.... now that I've made contact with them, we might be able to gather donations for them down the track. And to at least have a place to say "if you'd like to donate a few pads, you can contact these people" is great.

I was in an abusive relationship once, and ended up having to leave with only the clothes I was wearing and no money. So to be able to help out women who were in my situation (or worse, since I was able to stay with a relative - some women have nobody) is quite a good cause too.

13/12/07

Haven't updated in a while - sorry.

I'm still trying to find an agency to take the pads. It seems Counterpart has fallen through. The original woman I was talking to left after we'd got as far as sorting out what country we were going to send to. And the new woman in her role ended up passing my details on to a few other people, and I've not heard back from any of them.

I contacted Gloria (twice) again from the CCRF - but no reply.

I also contacted the original Oxfam contact I'd had - who I basically turned down because they wanted them as relief packages (for tsunamis and the like), and I'd wanted to have them go to women who have everyday needs. I never heard back.

I tried a different, general e-mail address for Oxfam, and no reply... and I've recently tried an e-mail address for someone to do with volunteering - so I'm hoping that will get a reply. Oxfam would be handy, as they have just opened a shop close to me, so I could take the boxes in. But we'll have to see.

I've also contacted a couple of people in regard to women's shelters.... so just waiting to hear back from them.

Its very hard to keep motivated with this when I'm having no luck getting the first lot of donations out :( I'd hoped to be doing a large run each year, but until I find an agency that will take them.... that's not going to happen.

10/9/07

We've had not much success getting the pads actually sent. Originally we were all set to post off, but our contact at Counterpart left their job, so we've had to start discussions from scratch with the new woman in that role. Who has said that contacting one of the Counterpart agencies closer to Australia would be a better idea than sending to them, and we are now waiting to hear back from them.

The caucus Children's fund was also contacted again, so far no reply.

(I ended up getting ziplockbags donated - so that was at no charge to us)

28/5/07

The auctions were a great success and we now have plenty of money raised to post off our pads. I've received the pads from the American pad makers and I'm just waiting on a box of pads donated by pleasurepuss, which will add significantly to the number of pads we have. I was given a list of possible countries to send the pads to (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova), but most have restrictions on what you can send - only items for personal use (and clothing for example is limited to only 3 items)... so I'm not sure what we can do about that. I'm waiting to hear back from our contact to see if they have approval or if that will be a problem. Belarus and Moldova didn't have those restrictions, so we can send them there.

I've added iron on labels to the waterproofed AIO pads (To show their absorbency), which were kindly donated by www.mynamelabel.com and I'm starting to package up the pads in bundles that can be given to each woman at the other end. I've realised I didn't include washing instructions in my instructions, so I'm redoing them.

We may have to purchase ziplock bags to put the individual bundles of pads in.... I think tying them with ribbon/twine will be harder to hand out and bits may fall out, and with ziplock bags the air can be squeezed out to compact the bundles and take up less space. I can buy them at about 20c a bag though, which is the cheapest option for packaging - even though it is not the best enironmentally (though they can be reused).

Pad tally:
190 pads made by me (and I've got some more belted pads to sew up)... AIO, belted, base + insert & pocket styles
100 AIO pads donated by Lily pads (Aus)
31 AIO pads donated by Kirsten (Aus)
52 base + insert pads donated by Lori (Aus)
5 AIO pads donated by (I've forgotten!) (Aus)
31 AIO pads donated by Cathy
5 Base + Insert pads donated by (Unknown) (USA)
16 base + Insert pads donated from (unknown) (USA)
13 inserts donated by (unknown) (USA)

Total: 443

{1 box (100-200) of Pleasurepuss AIO pads on its way...}

+ Pads collected in New Zealand

11/4/07

We have been doing some auctions through www.buyena.com, where several businesses have donated cloth pads and even a nappy and longies set, to be auctioned off to raise the postage money we need. There has been a great number of bidders, which is excellent! There are still a few more things coming, including a large set of various brands of pad for people to try!

There is also a couple of banners you can use to link back to here if you'd like to raise awareness on your website or forum signature. To see more, please go to the What Can you Do page

21/3/07

We have a few more postage donations, but still not enough to pay for the postage. So we will be holding some auctions where businesses and individuals are donating products to auction off to raise the money we need.

I will give more details about when this will happen when it is organised. I expect about 2-3 weeks time. In the meantime, if you would like to donate something to auction off (cloth pads or cloth nappies typically), please let me know

21/2/07

The First pad donation should have been wrapped up by now, but we're running a bit behind with the sewing.... but that's ok because we don't have anywhere near enough money donations to cover the postage... so we can't send them until we have that anyway :(

I currently have here 263 pads...our NZ contact has 119 pads... and pad donations have started arriving at our USA contact.

We desperately need postage donations though. So if you know anyone who would be interested in helping out, there is a donation button on the current projects page (or you can send money to the paypal account donate@donatepads.org)

We've also been contacted by a woman with family in Zimbabwe, who is very interested in getting cloth pad donations sent there, so this may mean we have an ongoing way to make contact ourselves....