Chapel Matters

This week in chapel we introduced our Anglican Family Care project for Term Two – tackling “Period Poverty” in our community. We had a social worker from AFC tell us the story of a young woman in Dunedin who had a young baby and was on her own after her husband left her during the pregnancy; at one point she had to choose between providing her baby with nappies or herself with sanitary items – she chose to put her baby’s needs above her own. This is not an uncommon story, even here in Dunedin, where women choose to put their children’s needs above their own. We were also reminded that for many young women, the consequences of not having access to sanitary products means they miss out on sport, schooling, social events etc. For example, one young woman didn’t show up for a netball game – the team members felt annoyed at her for letting them down and she felt too embarrassed to tell them the reason why she couldn’t be there.

So we are asking the Whanaungatanga groups to bring in items to support AFC in their community work by bringing in items – sanitary products or baby nappies! Baskets for these will be in the Student Foyer. We were also alerted to the preference for pads rather than tampons as people may have cultural reasons for not using tampons. We were also shown a pair of “period pants” which are a sustainable option!

The collection is over the rest of this term, with the baskets of items being presented as our “thanksgiving offering” during the Eucharist Service on Thursday July 8th. We link this in with our end of term Eucharist service because the word “eucharist” means “thanksgiving” – not only are we expressing our thanks to God for the love of Jesus for us, but we can also be thankful for all the good things we have been given in our lives, and we can also show our love for others who do not have much by giving generously to them.