Download PDFCOVID-19 has killed many businesses and young peoples’ dreams for a better life. Many of our youth have lost hope because their plans for their future were crushed when the pandemic hit South Africa. Amongst the youth whose dreams were affected by the COVID 19, is Ayanda.
Ayanda is a 24-year-old young woman who lives in Cloverdene (in Benoni, a town on the Eastrand of Johannesburg), who started a sanitary pads drive back in February 2017 to help girls in the community who could not afford to buy sanitary pads for themselves. Ayanda’s pad drive has worked with many organisations such as Shoprite, who has helped her a lot by donating sanitary pads.
In an interview with Karibu!, Ayanda mentioned that she gets all the sanitary pads she needs to give to the girls in her community by hosting events like Miss Cloverdene. At these events when you buy a ticket you donate sanitary pads according to the ticket you bought; if you bought an early bird ticket you donate 10 packs of sanitary pads and when you have the VIP ticket you donate 20 packs of sanitary pads.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit South Africa it affected Ayanda’s pad drive because a lot of her sponsors pulled out and she couldn’t host events for donations due to the COVID-19 regulations. Ayanda had to find a job to support and maintain the pad drive so that she could keep providing sanitary pads to girls who are in need.
“With this COVID-19 a lot of girls couldn’t really get enough money to buy sanitary pads for themselves because some of their parents were retrenched and they were not working,” said Ayanda. Because of this, many girls relied a lot on Ayanda.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the youth of South Africa in many different ways and this is one of the ways it has affected young women in particular.
This article was submitted on 3 March 2021. You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Karibu! Online (www.Karibu.org.za), and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
3 March 2021
