David Dixon Do It In A Dress Interview

David Dixon Do It In A Dress Interview

Fact: A girl born in Sierra Leone is more likely to be sexually assaulted than attend high school.

Launching on October 1st is a fundraising campaign with a difference: Do It In A Dress. The challenge for individuals and teams is not to go without food so others can eat, it's doing something in a school dress so girls in Africa can wear one too.

The campaign is the brainchild of One Girl founders Chantelle Baxter and David Dixon, who returned to Melbourne from humanitarian projects in Sierra Leone determined to close the global poverty gap.

Participants devise their own challenges and collect donations by creating a personalised page at doitinadress.com.

"The aim is for more than 1000 participants to raise $300,000 and already this year is shaping up to be a massive success with nearly $57,000 raised before the official launch. It's just so exciting to see it take off," says David. The campaign will officially run for the month of October, with people taking part all over the world, including USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Italy and beyond.

"There have been some very zany challenges registered! Participants have signed-up to sky dive, surf, and even deliver an international conference lecture in a school dress!" - Chantelle

In Sierra Leone, only 1 in 6 girls have the chance to attend high school, and almost one third of the girls born there will be married and pregnant before their 15th birthday. However, when a girl is educated, everything changes. She will marry later and have a smaller, healthier family. For every year she stays in school, she increases her income by 10% and invests 90% of that in her family. Educating a girl improves the local economy more than any other type of investment.

It costs just $240 to give a girl access to education for one year and One Girl provides everything a girl needs to go to school: books, bags, tuition fees, medical care, stationary, and you guessed it, school dresses.

One of the other things One Girl provides is the humble sanitary pad. The majority of women and girls in Sierra Leone don't have a hygienic way of managing their period. They may use five pairs of underwear, kitchen sponges, old cloth or whatever else is at hand.

To address this issue One Girl created LaunchPad, a social enterprise that trains local women to sell affordable, biodegradable sanitary pads in their communities. Each woman receives basic health and hygiene training, financial literacy, and marketing training. She is responsible for educating her community about the importance of menstrual hygiene. When she sells 100 packs of pads, she'll earn herself $10.00 - and she can invest that money back into her family.

Interview with David Dixon

Question: What is Do It In A Dress?

David Dixon: Do It In A Dress is a fundraising campaign which asks people to wear a school dress whilst facing a challenge and have their family and friends support them, whether that be going out to dinner, going ten pin bowling, or hiking all in a school dress. For every $240 a participant raises they provide one girl with access to education. 2011 was the first year of Do It In A Dress and we had 77 people participate, from around the world, and we raised $43,000 which was pretty amazing as the campaign was only put together over a short period of time.

This year, we have over 360 participants so far and we've already raised $63,000 and the campaign officially begins on the 1st of October, 2012.


Question: What inspired the creation of the campaign Do It In A Dress?

David Dixon: We've always been up to the challenge of engaging people, in a fun way, for fundraising to support our programs for the women and girls in Sierra Leone; in the past we'd got a team together and raised money by running the Melbourne Marathon.

When Chantelle Baxter was in America in 2011 she attended a conference where she challenged someone to ride 21km in a school dress and the guy accepted. Over the course of the conference Chantelle realised people took to the idea of a guy racing in a school dress and realised there was more to fundraising that running the Melbourne Marathon. When Chantelle returned we talked about the idea and realised people can do anything, in a school dress and now anyone can participate even those who don't like running.


Question: What types of challenges have you seen so far?

David Dixon: We've had three guys in Canada do a hike through the Rockies in school dresses over three days and we've had a couple of girls hike in their school dresses in Melbourne and we've had people go to the movies in school dresses. We even had a couple get married in school dresses, the groom as well! I am going to be skydiving in a school dress and we have a bunch of girls who are wearing a school dress, every day, for 30 days. It's got to the point where people are creating lists of all the different things you can do in a dress and you really can do anything!


Question: Your aim is to raise $300,000, what will this money go towards?

David Dixon: We are raising money towards our two main programs in Sierra Leone; we have an education program that consists of 150 girls who we are providing scholarships to and we also do school rehabilitation projects where we are looking at building one (possibly two) classrooms in one community. The communities that our school rehabilitation projects work in have bamboo chairs and we bring proper school materials so they can learn.

The money can also go towards our other project LaunchPad!


Question: Tell us about LaunchPad?

David Dixon: When we were in Uganda we met a young girl, Brenda, who was looking for money for school fees and we ended up giving her $40 which is enough to provide her education, for the year. Brenda then came to us one day saying she had Malaria and we realised she had her first period and she had no idea what it was and we had a translator explained to Brenda what menstruation was. Brenda returned to us a couple of days later asking Chantelle for some sanitary pads and Chantelle was worried about what would happen when she left and then what would Brenda do next month? Through this situation Chantelle realised there was an issue with not having sanitary pads in the developing country and Brenda had been told by the nurse that if she used toilet paper she would get cervical cancer. Chantelle realised there was an issue with information and their poor health and hygiene which lead her on a mission of discovering and opening up the taboo topic.


Question: How did you go about creating the LaunchPad for Sierra Leone, how many 'champions' do you have selling the LaunchPad in Sierra Leone?

David Dixon: We have ten champions selling the LaunchPad in Sierra Leone across five different communities and over the past two years we have been working with 150 women and school aged girls.

One of the moments I really enjoyed was when we chatted with a girl who was buying the sanitary pads as she said that when she had her period she would stand up in class and other students would see she had a blood stain on her dress and laugh at her and she'd be so embarrassed she would leave school then not return for the whole week and she did that once a month, every time she got her period. When she heard about the sanitary pads she went home and asked her mum for some money to buy the sanitary pads and her mum was asking who was talking to her about these things and once she explained the purpose of the sanitary pad her mother wanted some too; both women love the pads and are a huge advocate for them. I enjoy hearing stories like that because I know we are having an impact on the women and girls in Sierra Leone.


Question: What is your aim for the future?

David Dixon: Our goal is to provide 600 education scholarships by 2014 and also train 55 LaunchPad Champions whilst having a reach of 57,000 women across Sierra Leone; with LaunchPad our goal is to make sure all women and girls have access to a sanitary pad.


Interview by Brooke Hunter