2021 Recipient 

 'For Girls' Project

by Yoonjung Choi '23

For Girls is a project cultivated from a dream to help young girls struggling due to period poverty. This project supports local farmers in Cambodia through the selling of their Kampot peppers with the proceeds going directly to provide menstrual resources that are not easily available. The James A. Handrich Service Leadership Endowment Fund has provided For Girls with the seed money to kickstart their Kampot pepper shop with the goal of becoming a self-sustaining venture.

In Cambodia, the inability to effectively manage menstruation affects girls’ dropout rates from schools. When girls don’t have enough money to buy sanitary napkins, they resort to unhealthy options such as using newspapers and using one cloth for a long period of time. This puts not only their health but also their dignity and education at risk as they may be more vulnerable to early marriage and limitations in future career and economic opportunities.

Since receiving the James Handrich scholarship, For Girls has been selling the Kampot peppers online and packaging them in magazines. After transitioning to an online setting, they included an information leaflet to help their customers understand their goal behind selling the Kampot peppers.

Left to Right Vivian Huang '23, Yoonjung Choi '23, Darcy Lin '23

With the profits, For Girls helps fund period educational booklets, period-friendly school latrines, and lastly, reusable and thicker menstruation napkins to help students stay in school during their periods.

The group has also been working on raising public awareness through the forgirls.org website and @forgirlschapters social media platforms.

This year we are proud to announce that For Girls has been awarded support from the James Handrich fund for the second time. The group is projected to become self-sustaining from their expected net profit, which will be used to continue the sale of Kampot peppers with HK$10,000 to be donated to Plan International.