In Papua New Guinea, bilums accompany people from cradle to grave.

Through different patterns, bilums tell stories of joy, pain, transition, beauty — and even gender inequality. For each part of life that bilum patterns represent, we want to share how your gifts are making a difference in our work to address these needs and support women and girls in Papua New Guinea.

The diamond pattern symbolizes a young girl’s transition into womanhood at the onset of her first period. Unfortunately, menstrual hygiene management can be challenging in Papua New Guinea due to a lack of hygienic sanitation facilities and sanitary pads.

UNFPA includes these hygiene supplies in dignity kits provided to women and girls facing humanitarian crises. Last month alone, your gifts helped deliver 300 kits to women and girls in Papua New Guinea.

This design based on a woman’s womb stirred controversy with local authorities — where women’s bodies are heavily policed and regulated. In Papua New Guinea, women on average have one child more than they would like to, while one in four married women has an unmet need for family planning services.

Thanks to support, UNFPA is leading efforts to address these needs through initiatives like a national strategy promoting condom use and by assessing community needs for reproductive health commodities and services.

The spider web pattern teaches perseverance and patience since learning takes time. But many girls aren’t given the chance, and a major reason why is because they’re married at a young age.

In Papua New Guinea and around the world, UNFPA is advocating against child, early, and forced marriage, and has helped support more than nine million girls with prevention and protection services and care related to these harmful practices.

This design serves as a reminder of the unequal status of marginalized women. Older women, single mothers and widows work to make the meal, but are served only the fatty remnants and skin of the pig in cubes, which the bilum design is meant to resemble.

"I don't have my husband with me, and so it tells my story,” Ms. Jaukae told us. “It’s like a campaign against treating women like they are second class; even though we don’t have a husband, or come from a poor family, or we are widows — we deserve a space in the society, too.”

UNFPA is working to strengthen Papua New Guinea’s health system to support women like Ms. Jaukae and the rest of the country’s small but growing population of people over 65.

Finally, the mountain design stands as a potent symbol of the steep obstacles women must overcome in society. It’s a story of challenges, but also of belonging and calling the mountain home.

Our campaign to spotlight bilum weavers and the stories they tell, especially of the unequal ways society treats women and girls, reveals the urgent need to achieve gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights for all.

When supporters like you make a donation, you’re investing in a better, more just future for women and girls in Papua New Guinea and around the world.

So today, will you make a donation to deliver lifesaving care, resources, and programming and help build a more equal society for women and girls across the globe?

Thank you for supporting women and girls and being a part of this critical work.

— USA for UNFPA