Dorchester's Julie Fry receives British Empire Medal

Julie Fry, an NHS Administrator from Dorchester, is the co-founder of the Kenyan Project and has received a British Empire Medal (BEM) in the King's New Year's Honours. 

Upon receiving the award, Mrs Fry said: “It's still unreal. I was surprised when I received the email stating I had been nominated for the BEM for Service to Education and health in Kenya. 

“The work I do takes old fabric and turns it into a life-changing item, enabling girls to reach their full potential, improving their lives and the futures.  Their smiles brighten my life and encourage me to keep sewing.”

Mrs Fry’s husband, Cllr Les Fry, also received a BEM in June 2022 for 30 years of voluntary work in the local community.

Speaking about the fact both her and her husband received a BEM, Mrs Fry said: “It does feel completely unreal, and it’s nice that they are in completely different, individual things.”

Mrs Fry got involved in charity work around February 2017, where she joined a group of 20 people on a voluntary trip to Kenya, arranged by the Dorset Murungi Society based in Weymouth. She said that she was interested in the project because she’d wanted to visit Africa to tick it off her bucket list.  

She said that during that trip it became clear to her that girls were not gong to school during their period weeks, as they had no sanitary provision.

“This is an awful situation. Girls were missing a quarter of their education,” Mrs Fry said. “However, in Kenya this is worse as all the children are fed a midday meal of maze, rice or beans. As this is a poor area, the girls do not attend school often and had no food at home, so missed a week of nutrition as well as education.”

On her return to the country, Mrs Fry adapted the pattern of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) site for washable sanitary towels and started to sew.

She said: “The sanitary towels are made mainly of recycled making a very practical use of items that would otherwise end up in landfill.  Another lady on the trip, a NHS Health Visitor, used her skills, so we decided to work together to help these girls.”

READ MORE: Pair honoured for their work with Kenyan schoolgirls

When she returned to the country in the following year, she had made enough sanitary towels and bags to give to 64 girls. Each girl was given a drawstring bag with nine washable sanitary towels, five pairs of underwear, a small bag to take a clean sanitary towel to school and the soiled one home, soap to wash themselves and the towel.

Because of her efforts, to this date she has helped more than 550 girls which Mrs Fry says will rise in their next visit in 2024.

Mrs Fry stressed the importance of giving the girls underwear, saying that a risk of sexual assault was decreased as, according to the volunteer worker, a girl wearing underwear is deemed to be affluent. 

She added: “We must thank the groups of lovely people that have helped us with sewing sanitary towels, donating pants and materials.  These include Dorset Rock Choir, Dorchester United Reform Church Sewing Group and the Women’s Institutes of Wimborne and Frome.  Without their help we could not have helped so many people.”