By Renee Wood
A grade 11 student from Edinburgh College in Lilydale who lives in the Upper Yarra is raising donations for teen hygiene products to give back to a charity supporting those in need.
Isabelle Anderson is seeking donations from her peers in order to create teen hygiene packs for Pinchapoo, a not-for-profit that provides more than 8.5 million personal hygiene products to disadvantaged men, women and children yearly.
The 17-year-old starting campaigning at school with posters at the start of term three after learning of the need for hygiene products.
“I heard that Pinchapoo needed more hygiene products for teens and I was reading articles from them about the statistics about even young teenagers not having toothpaste and toothbrushes, the necessities that we all have,” Miss Anderson said.
“So I just started this as a thing for people to bring unused ones from their household just to raise awareness mainly and just try and help out just a little bit.”
Miss Anderson has received great support from students, their families and teachers and is grateful for the opportunity to educate others about the hygiene inequity many face.
“100 per cent needs to more education on it – it was quite surprising how little people think about it,” she said.
“Things like deodorant and everything like that, people don’t really stop to think that maybe others our age don’t have those necessities. So I think definitely things need to be put more in place so that we can all be more educated on it.”
She is sharing her story in the hopes of inspiring others to raise donations for local emergency relief centres or charity organisations.
“I think we need to spread the word about this sort of thing and any sort of donation or awareness really does make a difference, I’ve seen [it has] at least at my school.”
