By Tanya Maswaure
Valerie Lobo is just another ordinary teenager completing her A-Levels and working her way through high school but, now she is an ordinary teenager with fantastic A-level results changing the world one sanitary wear at a time. In 2021 after launching her campaign with a few friends, namely The Helping club, Chengeto Foundation and Go Zimbabwe, she changed the lives of hundreds of girls across her country.
Eighteen-year-old Valerie was driven by her love for all women and heart of gold to lead a campaign to raise 1000 sanitary packs for young girls in need in the country. She began the campaign in July with an idea and desire, “I am passionate about female empowerment”, she told us, “so anything related to women and empowering them is my driving point.” Even though this was her first time pursuing such a project she still managed to get such astonishing results to the point of national recognition.
Initially, she planned to involve schools mainly, but covid put up many barriers for her, yet she was not deterred. Valarie decided to launch an online campaign led by neighbourhood-level interactions. “We had to do drop-offs for pads to maintain Covid regulations but as the cases in the countries reduced, we were able to go physically to some schools for donations”. When we inquired about how she attained her funds we were moved by her ambition and drive.
“I wrote letters, and walked around offices and they gave me ideas and exposure even though they didn’t all sponsors.” She told us. Her main obstacle was that people were not willing to donate to a cause that was still very new and not well known. Fortunately, she collaborated with other organizations that already had connections. “Although most of our collaborations helped, the largest chunk of the assistance came from friends and family.”
Her campaign managed to gather over 1500 pads for 400 girls. Finally, they managed to have a presentation event where she managed to present sanitary wear with her collaborators and fellow schoolmates from Hillcrest College Zimbabwe, but she did not end here. On their social media platforms, they went on to educate on menstruation. “As Africans, we have this stigma where we cannot mention menstruation, and for something so frequent and normal, we had to teach people otherwise.” They spoke of PMS and period pain on their platform, including health commentary and advice. This type of conversation has brought her campaign to a higher level.
Following her success, she was mentioned and featured on national television and radio, including newspaper mentions, awards, and collaboration with ministers. It is impressive to see how one person with a dream can change so much many lives. Miss Lobo admitted that this is only the beginning. Now, with the publicity her campaign gathered and hopefully with the help and collaboration of many more willing, she was working on more campaigns focusing on education.
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