{"id":213100,"date":"2019-07-28T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-28T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/germistoncitynews.co.za\/213100\/changing-the-face-of-poverty\/"},"modified":"2019-07-31T08:49:43","modified_gmt":"2019-07-31T06:49:43","slug":"changing-the-face-of-poverty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/news-headlines\/2019\/07\/28\/changing-the-face-of-poverty\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing the face of poverty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty-year-old Zimkitha Mnukwa from Kaltehong is on a mission to better the lives of girls in her rural home town of Flagstaff in the Eastern Cape.<\/p>\n

Zimkitha recently started her #IMatter campaign, which primarily focuses on collecting sanitary pads and clothing for underprivileged girls.<\/p>

<\/div>\n

\u201cI matriculated from Kwadukathole Comprehensive School in 2016, and when I was no longer using my uniform, I decided to give it to a girl in my neighbourhood who did not have a complete school uniform,\u201d said Zimkitha.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce a few neighbours learnt of this, they asked me why I did not sell my uniform to make extra money. That\u2019s when I realised that sometimes people who are in the position to help others still want to squeeze out money from the needy instead of just helping them.\u201d<\/p>

<\/div>\n

ALSO READ:\u00a0 Young philanthropist aims to inspire her generation<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n

She attributed that incident and remembering how she grew up in Flagstaff, when she never had enough money to buy school jerseys, blazers or even monthly supplies of toiletries, as her motivation to start this campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what it feels like to use a cloth as a sanitary pad and nervously having to check it between breaks to ensure that it was not too full and that it stayed in place until the after-school bell rings,\u201d said Zimkitha.<\/p>\n

\u201cI once wore three pairs of panties, thinking they would prevent leakage, but they did not. That only resulted in me being the joke of the class because a teacher decided to humiliate me for not wearing a sanitary pad.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike many girls in my village, I found myself contemplating missing school every month during my menstrual cycle and even dropping out completely.\u201d<\/p>\n