Twelve-year-old Aliyah with some of the bags and supplies already collected for She is Me. Photo / Stuart Whitaker
Twelve-year-old Aliyah with some of the bags and supplies already collected for She is Me. Photo / Stuart Whitaker
A Te Puke 12-year-old is asking women everywhere to hunt for their unwanted, good-quality bags — so she can repurpose them as carriers of love.
Te Puke Intermediate School student Aliyah, supported by her mum Charli McLachlan, came up with the idea of asking for donations of bags or backpacks, and of essential supplies.
She wants to then make up bags of supplies to help women who have found themselves on the streets, living in their cars or at a Women’s Refuge shelter.
“I’ve always wanted to help people and didn’t really know a way how to,” she says. “Mum helped me with the idea that we should just put some bags together and give them to some women,” says Aliyah.
Aliyah made a list of all the things she thought would be good to go in the bags.
“She just came to me with this idea so I said ‘go and write it down — go and make a plan’ and then when she showed me the list I thought ‘that’s quite profound’,” says Charli, who suggested a Facebook post to “see what happens”. The post went up on December 12.
“And literally within 24 hours we got $300 and we got nearly a whole box of stuff and lots of bags,” says Aliyah.
“By Tuesday I was doing pickups,” says Charlie. “I didn’t think it would take off — I thought it would just be just friends and she’d maybe get five bags or something, but we are set for 100 bags currently.”
People have been ordering online and having things delivered to Charli’s house.
“We’ve had boxes turn up with deodorant, toothbrushes, all sorts, that people have ordered online.”
Aliyah says her mum’s work with homeless people was one of the reasons that was where she wanted to target her efforts, but Charli says her daughter has long shown a desire to help others.
“We used to be travellers around the world and six years ago we were in LA and Aliyah was quite captivated by the amount of homeless people, and she just wanted to give them things so this initiative actually started back then when she made me go shopping and to fill up all these bags for the homeless people.”
Charli anticipates some of the bags will go to Tauranga Women’s Refuge, which covers Te Puke.
“They oversee the women’s shelter for women living on the streets or in their cars — and there are a lot of teenage girls.”
Aliyah has reached out to the community to help homeless women. Photo / Stuart Whitaker
Aliyah says she wants those who receive the bags to get the things they deserve and to feel like they deserve things, even when they can’t afford them.
Only the bags are not new, but they are asking for bags that are still in good condition.
Given the name She is Me, Aliyah says the idea is that the message is she wants other women to feel like her and that they deserve the things she has.
“Any woman can end up in any situation that you don’t realise or expect, so it’s to give women, especially those in a refuge, things they just weren’t able to grab on their way out the door.”
While the initiative is longer term than just for Christmas — and Aliyah would like to eventually do something similar for men and tweens — this time of year can be particularly tough.
“At this time of year there’s financial stress, there’s a lot more abuse. Tauranga has gone off the chart with the number of homeless families and there are kids and teenagers too — it’s quite sad.”
A new She is Me Instagram page has just been started and that plus the Facebook post getting shared, have brought interest and donations from throughout the country.
Among the items being asked for are feminine products, underwear, wet wipes, roll-on deodorant, chocolate bars, soaps and shampoos, hair brushes/ties, lip balms and caps or beanies.
Aliyah says she would like to thank anyone for “caring and donating some lovely things to put in the bags”.
