Container full of aid sent to Lebanon from Essex

A charity supplying reusable sanitary pads to fight period poverty around the globe has sent a container full of aid to Lebanon.

Ella Lambert, from Chelmsford, said people from across the UK had donated enough items to fill a 40ft (12m) container.

The 75,000 items include children's and baby clothes, blankets, shoes and reusable sanitary pads.

Miss Lambert, 24, won a Diana Award this week for her work with The Pachamama Project. The charity has 2,500 volunteers across 13 countries who make reusable period pads that are sent worldwide.

Since the charity was founded in 2020, pads have been delivered to refugees and vulnerable people in places including Greece, Pakistan and the United States.

Miss Lambert said the team from Pachamama had collected "well over 1,000 boxes of aid" over the summer.

Businesses, nurseries, schools, mosques and church groups had helped, she added, with one mosque donating enough items to fill seven camper vans.

The donated items will help "8,000 people over the next six months and support another 4,000 people out of period poverty for at least the next five years", Miss Lambert said.

"We normally get some good responses from the local community because we have relationships with them, but what was amazing was people from all over the country were shipping thousands of hijabs to our home in Essex.

"We had a whole truckload of hijabs and abayas from Bolton – that's insane.

"This will make a massive difference to people who are still in those shelters and to people who are experiencing the ongoing refugee crisis, both from Palestine and Syria, in Lebanon."

She added: "There are so many terrible things happening right now.

"But what we were seeing every single day was incredible – lovely people who just wanted to help.

"I think there is power in action, and I think we've seen with this effort that it is very easy to see what is going on in the world and despair.

"It actually makes you feel a lot better when you are doing something about it."

Miss Lambert received her Diana Award on Thursday.

"It is the most prestigious award a young person can win, so it is a complete honour," Miss Lambert said.

"It is a massive surprise and it is really exciting. Everyone remembers Diana as someone who shone a light on stigmatised issues.

"In keeping with that it is really amazing that they are now spotlighting our work after her passing."

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