Out of Africa into Jessica Ridgeway’s heart By David N. Young January 23, 2019 Los Alamitos teen creates nonprofit for African girls By David N. Young It’s a world away, yet a Los Alamitos High School senior has taken a bond of gratitude out of Africa into her very own heart. Although the remote African country of Kenya is nearly 10,000 miles from relatively small city of Los Alamitos, the inspiration of Jessica (Jessie) Ridgeway shows how quickly the yearning of human hearts can overcome any measure of distance. “I want to make a difference,” said seventeen-year-old Ridgeway. Following a visit to Africa in 2016, she was inspired to find a way to help the girls she met. After a long process, Ridgeway has finally received her IRS approval to form a 501c3 nonprofit organization, which she has entitled “African Sisterhood.” Armed with government approval, Ridgeway, supported by her parents, friends and volunteers are now preparing to sew their way into the lives of hundreds of young African women. Kenya is an amazing place. Sweeping savannahs. Monstrous craters. Incredible views of wildlife, nature and is very near the “cradle of civilization.” Yet for all its beauty, history and majesty, there remain significant challenges to young women living there, claims Ridgeway. While visiting there with her parents, Ridgeway was moved not only by the scenery and the safari, but was struck by what she discovered visiting local orphanages and tribal villages of the Maasai tribe in the remote Kenyan countryside. “I learned of a very common challenge that girls in Kenya face,” said Ridgeway. “About 36% of school aged girls drop out of school due to missing too many days while on their menstrual cycle. When provided with feminine hygiene products, the drop out rate is reduced to only 8%,” she added. According to Ridgeway, the goal of her nonprofit “is to empower girls and women in Kenya by helping them with basic needs starting with providing them feminine hygiene products.”
After undertaking the challenge of forming the “African Sisterhood” nonprofit, Ridgeway has accepted the challenge to supply teen girls in Kenya with reusable feminine hygiene pads.
Ridgeway said she met with so many girls that told her that not having the ability to attend school because of simple menstrual cycles caused them to miss class and, in some cases, drop out. One problem, though, in that Ridgeway had no idea how to make feminine hygiene products. “I did some research,” she said, and later traveled to Utah to meet with women already doing the same thing. Slowly, she began to understand how to make feminine napkins out of cotton and flannel. Ridgeway even spoke to engineers and with the help of friends and family, sewed a prototype, which she now demonstrates to a growing army of volunteers who want to help. “It’s crazy,” said Ridgeway, whose heart was touched by the teenaged African girls she met. “They have very little but are so happy; so grateful for the tiniest things,” she said. Whether or not it is the contagious humility or the tremendous need, Ridgeway’s African trip apparently changed her life, inside and out. Even before her Africa trip, Ridgeway was already an experienced traveler, having seen poverty in South America and other places. Her parents, William and Tricia, have for a long time taken their children with them on travels around the world. Her dad is a Long Beach veterinarian and her mom is involved in business, including her own efforts to make life easier for African villages. Ridgeway said she came up with the name of African Sisterhood after one of the girls in the orphanage “asked to be my sister.” While visiting with girls in the village and the orphanage, she learned that while the government does make feminine napkins available, the stores in some cases are hundreds of miles from the girls, who already have to walk three hours per day just to get dirty water to drink. Ridgeway hopes to assemble 300 “girl kits” that she plans to personally deliver this summer when she and her family go back to Africa. Each kit will contain a bar of soap, a washcloth, 3 or 4 feminine napkins, underwear and a zip lock bag for washing. With her nonprofit now official, Ridgeway has organized her first “sew-in” this Saturday, January 26, at the Sea Base, 5876 Appian Way in Long Beach. She could use dark colored 100 percent cotton washcloths (dark colors please), sewing machines and volunteers who know how to use them. “Jessie has a big heart,” said her mom Tricia, who is working with Jessie to launch African Sisterhood. Jessie’s mom said she and her husband have taken their children, Jessica and Josh, to many parts of the world and they are very supportive of their daughter’s philanthropic ambition. Ridgeway’s story is one of a caring American family, unafraid of embracing cultures a world away and then, in their own way, making a small difference in the lives of less fortunate young women they discovered along the way. For Jessie Ridgeway, the aura of happiness is now out of Africa and into her heart, with the connection only expected to grow in the years ahead. Editors Note: For readers who want to donate, bring a sewing machine or volunteer for the “sew-in this Saturday,” email the Ridgeways at africansisterhood@aol.com or visit www.africansisterhood.org.
Ridgeway said that the girls she met at an orphanage in Narok, Kenya were the inspiration for her project. —Photo courtesy Jessie Ridgeway"I didn't think it was right for any girl to have to stop going to school because they had their period," Jessie Ridgeway, Girl Scout and Los Alamitos High School senior, said. "They're putting their lives on hold, and many of them can't catch up." Ridgeway joined her mother, brother and other members of her family on a trip to Kenya in early 2018. She said that their travels brought them to rural Narok — about an hour outside of Nairobi — where they had the opportunity to learn about one village's culture, food and day-to-day living.
"One thing stuck out for me and that's that the girls have limited opportunities compared to the boys," Ridgeway said.
She added that when the girls reach puberty, they're taken out of school for the duration of their monthly cycle. They often fall behind in their studies, and might end up getting married and starting a family instead of finishing school. "I was shocked that they couldn't go to school," she said, "They're my age, they shouldn't have to get married, right?" She added that she felt like she had an obligation to do something. As a Girl Scout, Ridgeway said that she is participating this year in the Gold Award Project, which calls on high school Girl Scouts to take on a sustainable project that helps others — whether that be in their community or on the other side of the globe. So, Ridgeway said that she decided rather quickly that she wanted to do something that could help the young girls she met while in Kenya, many of whom have already reached puberty and are falling behind on their studies. "They don't have access to products for their periods like we do here," she said. "So that's my project, to send items that girls don't really have access to in rural Kenya." And it appears that it may be a Ridgeway family trait to use resources that they have at home to help others. Ridgway's mother, Tricia, and aunt, Susie, hosted a fundraiser in 2017 to raise money for clean water tanks for the Maasai tribe in Kenya by selling jewelry made by the tribe's women. They ended up raising $500 to install a freshwater tank for clean and drinkable water. Following in her family's footsteps, Ridgeway said that she's going to put together more than 300 drawstring backpacks filled with sanitary items for the girls and women in Narok. She and her family will be heading back in the summer to hand deliver them. Each package will contain four to five washable sanitary pads, wash cloths, soap, two pairs of underwear and a bag to wash the items with, all secured in a drawstring bag. But with a goal to have all of the packages finished and shipped by summertime, Ridgeway is asking for help. The Girl Scout is hosting a work party to help make the items and put the packages together, and the public is invited to lend their support. That's happening from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. this Saturday, Jan. 26, at the Boy Scouts of America Long Beach Sea Base, 5875 Appian Way. She added that they are looking for donations of new underwear, cotton washcloths and drawstring backpacks. Cash donations also are welcome. And for people who want to help sew the sanitary pads during the work party, Ridgeway asks that they bring a sewing machine or sewing kits to use for work. "I would like to see this get bigger, but we'll see how much we can do by summer," she said. More information about Ridgeway's project can be found at africansisterhood.org. Stephanie Stutzman can be reached at sstutzman@gazettes.com.
Neighbors: Los Alamitos High School student creates nonprofit to fight child marriage in Kenya Approximately 23 percent of women in Kenya are married before turning 18.
Los Alamitos High School senior Jessie Ridgeway, 17, created the nonprofit African Sisterhood to fight child marriage in Kenya. Here, she’s pictured visiting an orphanage northwest of Nairobi in 2016, when she first got the idea to create nonprofit. (Courtesy of Jessie Ridgeway)
By EMILY RASMUSSEN | erasmussen@scng.com | Long Beach Press-Telegram PUBLISHED: January 23, 2019 at 3:47 pm | UPDATED: January 27, 2019 at 4:12 pm
During a 2016 trip to Kenya, Los Alamitos High School senior Jessie Ridgeway was shocked to learn why some teenage girls drop out of school, leaving them with no other option than becoming child brides. They can’t afford feminine hygiene supplies. During a visit to an orphanage a few hours northwest of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, that Ridgeway became quick friends with girls around her age. Her family travels often, having visited Africa multiple times and other parts of the globe. But this trip was different for Ridgeway, who learned from an orphanage supervisor that the same girls she’d befriended may fall victim to child marriage – simply because they cannot afford pads or tampons – and must stay home during their menstrual cycles. And, due to the lack of education, some of those teenage girls inherently more vulnerable to marriage before turning 18. “They are forced to drop out and get married at like 15,” said Ridgway, 17. “It’s just crazy – they’ll sit at home, on a cardboard box – they don’t have anything. Or they’ll use dried-up corn leaves (as a pad), but that can turn into an infection.” In Kenya, 23 percent of women (aged 20 to 24 years) are married before turning 18, according to the United Nation’s Children’s Fund. There are as many girls as boys attending school in Kenya, but only until age 13. At that point, the percentage of boys attending school grows higher than girls, a report by the Education Policy and Data Center said. The younger generations in Kenya are slowly narrowing the achievement gap between genders, but female students continue to have less education than their male peers, according to the report. After hearing stories about what happens to these girls – but from not the teens themselves, because they were too embarrassed to talk about it – it stuck in Ridgeway’s mind. So when she came home, Ridgeway decided to do something about it. She created a nonprofit.
“I’m making reusable feminine hygiene pads so these girls can attend school while on their cycle,” Ridgeway said. “This will empower them to have a brighter future.” African Sisterhood became a certified 501(c)3 nonprofit organization just a few weeks ago, but for over the past year, Ridgeway has been collecting supplies to make reusable pads to bring back to Kenya. Ridgeway and her friends make the pads themselves – made of five layers of fabric, mostly made of cotton – using sewing machines. They’ll take each pad, which can last up to three years, and create a care package for the teens in Kenya. Each bag costs about $8, containing the pad, underwear, soap and a washcloth. Ridgeway and her mother, Tricia, plan to take the bags to Kenya this summer. Their goal is to create nearly 300 bags, which they will deliver themselves to the orphanage. “It was her all her idea,” Tricia said. “I’m proud of her, I’m really proud she has compassion for others.” Ridgeway said they are still seeking supplies or monetary donations, which can be made through the website www.africansisterhood.org. These are the supplies the nonprofit is seeking: 100 percent cotton, dark-colored washcloths; drawstring backpacks; and 100 percent cotton girl (size 10 to 16) or women (size small and medium) underwear. The nonprofit will also be hosting a sewing day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 26, at Long Beach Sea Base 5875 Appian Way, to create more pads. For more information, you can email africansisterhood@aol.com.