Friday, March 23, 2012

Give A Bra, Save A Life


I have a bag of old bras sitting in the back of my closet that I know I won’t ever wear but at the same time I don’t want to throw out.

The reason I put them away was because my favourite lingerie store of all time had started a promotional deal that I thought was brilliant: donate an old bra you no longer use, they would recycle them as insulation for buildings, get a discount on a new one. Suddenly I was in the throes of bra spring cleaning, and I discovered that I had many more than I thought I had that no longer fit. However, since the store in question is a little expensive, and they only took one bra of yours for every one you bought, and they stopped having this deal for a while now, that bag has been sitting there ever since and I still don’t know what to do with them.

Sound familiar? Is there a single woman among us that does not have at least one bra that is never going to be worn again?

Well, thanks to CNN (wow, they still are good for something aren’t they), I have discovered an excellent destination for those bras

The stay-at-home-mom started collecting unwanted bras as a way to help women on the other side of the world. It started small through word of mouth, and then a Facebook page.

Langas collects unwanted bras for a charity called "Free the Girls" which gives them to young women coming out of sex trafficking in Mozambique - not to wear, but to sell in used clothing markets where bras are a luxury item and command top dollar.
The girls can make three times the average wage, more than enough to support themselves and not be trafficked again.

It’s amazing how many things we take for granted. I have at least 15 bras in that bag doing absolutely nothing. Women of Mozambique, I would be happy to give them to you.

It spread so much that Langas had to rent a storage unit to hold them all. But now she has a big problem: How is she going to move 25,000 bras 10,000 miles (15,000 kilometers)?
A shipping container would cost $6,500; money she says she just doesn't have. When she hears about people traveling to Mozambique, she asks them to take an extra suitcase with them, filled with bras. But her goal is to raise enough money to ship all of them.

In the meantime, she is encouraged by the volunteers helping her and motivated by the young victims she is fighting for, happy to do her small part in the fight to end modern-day slavery.

Here is her Facebook page for updates on their progress, and here is the link with information on how to donate bras and/or money to the Free the Girls charity. Mine are on their way, and I hope you girls out there follow suit and give what you can. 

I know that you all have at least one bra you can part with

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