Days for Girls Regional Conference

This year's Days for Girls Utah regional conference was held on March 9th and 10th at the beautiful DoTerra headquarters in Pleasant Grove, Utah. We're sure grateful for our partnership with DoTerra and all they do for DfG!

If you've never been to a Days for Girls conference you are missing out! Not only do we laugh and have a great time, eat great food and win prizes, but we learn. We hear stories, talk about solutions, and figure out how to make room in our lives for life-sustaining service for others. We learn how amazing and resilient women around the world are, and we feel inspired to do more.

Day One:

We began the meeting by getting to know each other. Every person at the conference was involved in Days for Girls in a different way. Some were just starting, and others had been involved since the beginning. But each woman (and one man!) were there for the same reason: to serve. To help alleviate suffering in whatever way possible. It was incredible to hear about women donating hundreds of hours of their time, receiving nothing in return but the assurance that they're making a difference to someone they may never meet.

And guess who was there!

Celeste Mergens is the founder of Days for Girls and a totally AMAZING woman. Meeting Celeste was like meeting a favorite celebrity (that you've only ever seen online and in magazines) face to face. For real! Coming to the conference would have been worth it just to hear her story. Talk about inspiring, incredible and tear-jerking. Celeste came from so little, and had so many challenges early on in life. But that didn't stop her from finding her mission on this earth.

She told us story after story about the women whose lives have been completely transformed when they received Days for Girls kits. When they discovered that they have worth as women. That they are not secondhand citizens. That they can say NO when someone tries to take advantage of them. Days for Girls brings these women not only dignity, but new life, in a very literal way.

And what's a Days for Girls event without doing a little service? We got a chance to see and try each step of the process in making a kit -- from tracing PUL (the waterproof material used in a liner), to surging and sewing each component.

Day 2:

The second day was all about the education that comes with each Days for Girls kit. Celeste did a full Ambassador of Women's Health training. What that means is that each person there now knows what they need to know and what they need to teach when they distribute Days for Girls kits anywhere around the world. We don't just hand out the kits and run. The girls need to know how to use them, how to take care of them, and maybe most importantly, that periods are NORMAL. That without periods there would be no people! When we start there, breaking the stigma that periods are a "curse," something to fear, something ugly, then a girl's world has the potential to change completely.

We learned how to teach the basics of male and female anatomy, what menstruation is, and how a baby is conceived (Yes, there are women out there who don't know this! Knowledge is power!). But not only that. We also learned how to help women be aware of potential human trafficking scams, and how to defend themselves if they're attacked. Candice, our own Davis County workroom leader, taught some basics of self defense and we got to practice.

Days for Girls isn't just for women and girls. There is a training for the men as well called Men Who Know. Because when men begin to understand and promote the truth, that women are important, that periods are essential to life, then the Days for Girls initiative is able to take hold more seamlessly.