We heard about Mary on our pre-tour visit to Kenya in 2014 and were instantly inspired by her story. Within minutes of actually meeting her in July 2015 we were blown away by her passion to help young teenage girls to conquer menstruation. Due to the lack of access to sanitary products, girls are often forced to miss school and are more susceptible to infections and other devastating consequences.

It is not uncommon to find girls using leaves, old used rags, newspaper, bits of mattress stuffing or even mud to create some form of protection to use when they have their periods. Consequently this means they don’t go to school, they lose out on their development, and they definitely don’t do sport. Mary saves up her own money, and when she has enough, she buys sanitary pads and donates them to the girls. We want to help Mary to achieve her ambition of getting more sanitary pads to more girls in Kenya.

It costs 45p to buy a pack of 8 sanitary pads. Each pack can last the girl the full period.

If you feel passionate about this and want to help change lives make a donation by clicking on this link and quote “SANITARY PADS KENYA.” All money donated will go directly to Mary to purchase and distribute pads.

Here’s her story in her own words; we are so proud to know her.
“Am Mary Emoit from a village in Kenya found in Bungoma County named Kabkara. I grew up from Kabkara and schooled there right from primary school to secondary school then later I joined the university of Nairobi where am pursuing Bachelors of Commerce. I started helping a girl child from my village in 2010 when I visited home then I found one of my neighbour’s daughter had not attended the school and when I approached her she told me she was sick. I offered to take her to hospital now that I knew the parents well, while on our way the girl disclosed to me her problems. She said she was on her periods but unlucky enough she can’t attend school due to lack of sanitary pads. Apparently she calls it cotton and she told me the teacher is aware of her absenture and almost a few girls can afford cotton or even they use leaves to control the flow. I was really shocked because during our time we started at high school and it was provided by parents because it was a requirement.
I decided to go to the nearby shop that is 2km and bought the sanitary towels and brought it to the girl. The following morning when I visited the school to inquire for more I found Janet in her class. I decided to talk to the fellow girls and the story was same. Since then I have been donating pads to them through my pocket money. After three months I supply like 136 box of pads for them not to miss their lesson because I know there future is bright. I love charity since then because the moment I visit the girls they have never missed school unless I miss to support them and in their career they have really improved.
Although the number is increasing to 210 girls I may need help but so far am a role model to them and I have taught them to share the little they have.”
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English superleague team Hertfordshire Mavericks donated kit to the Netball Development Trust at their season ending Superleague game versus Manchester Thunder at the Herts Sports Village in Hatfield on the evening of the 16th of May.

It was an amazing evening for Monica Thandi and Symone Lawson to represent the Trust at the game and collect this donation that will go to the girls and boys who participate in the coaching programme in Uganda and India this year.

The Mavericks played their last superleague game of the season and lost to Manchester Thunder 38-47. The Mavericks are coached by former England international player Karen Atkinson, it’s been a season of trying out new players for the Mavericks which should be a good investment for the 2014 Superleague.

For more on the Mavericks – please visit their website www.mavericksnetball.co.uk
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Our tour to Uganda is from June 27th to July 15th followed by our tour to India from the 2nd to 17th of November.
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For more details on our tours and to donate kit, equipment or used digital cameras – please write to Monica Thandi and Julie Smith at netballtrust@hotmail.com

It was Top Corner’s Christmas Award Evening on 29th November where we were invited to raise funds. Teams were totally in the festive mood enjoying dance and drinks. Top Corner held a raffle and donated all the money to our Trust.

We raised £360 from raffle and selling caps, mugs and wristbands.

Also a team (called “Multinats”) who won two Gilbert netballs through the raffle donated the balls to NDT.

We are expressing our sincere thanks to everyone who bought a raffle ticket or one of the wristbands, caps or mugs. 

The Top Corner Awards night has been running since 2010 and are hosted 4-5 times a year for teams who have either won an individual award or finished the league as runners up or champions. Teams are presented with their trophies and it is a great opportunity for teams to get together and celebrate their achievements and basically party!

• To view the story of NDT on Top Corner’s Website Please click here
• To know more about Top Corner or sign up your team please click here
• Take a look at the pictures clicked at award evening by clicking here

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The Trust recently had an opportunity to work with the Wobulenzi Town Academy (WTA), a secondary school, is located a 75 minute drive north of Kampala City in Uganda.
The WTA is part of the servedirect project that has been working in Uganda since 1999 to deliver education, medical and community assistance.

The new school has a netball court and students are very keen to take on the sport. The lack of kit had been hampering them and they were unable to play in a recent tournament as they lacked netball skirts… so it was time to do something about this!
NDT sent a consignment of netball kit for the WTA kids with Chris Hutton who volunteers with Servedirect, Chris sent us the images below of the kids and volunteers from the school.

We look forward to working with Chris Hutton and Elspeth Dugdale at Servedirect and helping them to improve lives and our making a difference together.

Please take a moment and visit Servedirect’s website for more information on their great work and to assist them to do more.
Thank you Chris, Elspeth, all the Servedirect volunteers and teachers for an amazing project and all the hard work you are doing!
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Happy Flowers!

This year’s annual Top Corner Netball Champions Cup was the biggest and best to date. With 12 ladies teams and 12 mixed teams competing for their respective Cups, played in front of a full house who took over the netball courts at Waterloo’s GMH Park.
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The winning team – Freshfields, kindly donated their prize of 10 customized Gilbert t-shirts to us here at the trust, we are so pleased with this contribution to our programme, Top Corner and Gilbert and of course Team Freshfields… Thank you very much!