THR5VE
Menstrual Health Project
Ruby Schlaker / Fundraise
Fund Menstrual Health Resources for Women & Girls Forcibly Displaced from Myanmar
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$230
Raised
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$500
Goal
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3
Supporters
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0
Days Remaining
Recent Transactions
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Anonymous
$30.00 / 24 days ago
Happy to support this wonderful project with my incredible friend Ruby!
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Michael Schlaker
$100.00 / 29 days ago
About Menstrual Health Project
My name is Ruby, and I am so grateful to be interning this month with THR5VE— a group of people dedicated to helping others thrive. I am working closely with the co-founders of THR5VE, Mel & Kelly, who have been awesome mentors as I join in their community health work in partnership with forcibly displaced women & girls from Myanmar. And we need your help!
First, let me tell you a bit about how I got here…
Over the past 4 months, I have been living in the lovely, small but buzzing city of Lampang, Thailand, and teaching English under a Fulbright grant. I have had a truly wonderful and truly challenging experience so far— doing my very best to learn Thai; giving lessons to 700(!), 17-year-olds at a Thai government school; laughing until I cry with my students and their brilliant shenanigans; eating the most incredible food; giving and receiving more fruit than I know what to do with; and finding my footing in the communal warmth and kindness of Lampang.
On my break from teaching (summer starts in late February in Thailand— it's too hot to be in school here!:), I have had the chance to live in nearby Chiang Mai and intern with THR5VE. I’m now able to begin to truly learn about the conflict deeply wounding our neighbors in Myanmar, just about 4.5 hours drive away from Chiang Mai.
To start my internship earlier this month, I spent 5 days in a homestay in a Karen village about an hour into the mountains with Zab— another Fulbright grantee, THR5VE intern, and my dear friend. We had a fantastic time learning about the daily patterns of life in the village, teaching informal English lessons at the primary school in the evenings, and doing some interviews with women and girls.
Zab and I had 2 goals:
1. To listen deeply and align with the THR5VE’s values of partnership rather than imposing our understanding of “help,” in this case living and learning with a Karen ethnic minority community,
2. To understand the state of menstrual health education and resources in this specific village, such that I can create a culturally-responsive poster surrounding menstrual health. This poster will be hung in bathroom stalls in the village, and we will assess the response to the materials.
Our long-term aim is to eventually adapt and adopt the research and poster from our homestay as part of a larger Menstrual Health Project. Such a project will distribute a menstrual health kit—including educational materials, reusable pads, and soap—in refugee camp communities for forcibly displaced Karen people from Myanmar. In these Karen refugee communities, when girls/young women do not have menstrual health care supplies (namely, pads) they almost always stop going to school during the time they are menstruating, or stop going to school altogether.
If done well, then, my work on THR5VE’s Menstrual Health Project could have a direct positive impact on the access to education for girls/young women in Karen-Burmese refugee camps.
But this is just the start!
To continue, I need your support…
- $14.57 can cover the cost of a menstrual health education & resource kit for a woman/girl in a forcibly displaced community, including 5 reusable pads, soap, and educational pamphlets
- $29.94 can cover the cost of one day & night of Ruby & Zab’s homestay in the Karen village (including: food, housing, and transport)
- $49.89 can cover the cost of 4 hours of Thai-to-English translation during Ruby & Zab's homestay
Lastly, please do consider sharing with anyone else you think might be interested, and ask me questions if you have them!
With care,
Ruby