UPDATE - THE HEAD SHAVE HAS HAPPENED. PLEASE KEEP DONATING THOUGH!

NEW UPDATE: I AM NOW GOING TO DO A LIVE HEADSHAVE ON OCTOBER 17th AT 9.30PM (Shoreditch House). PLEASE HELP ME REACH MY TARGET BY THEN AND REGISTER IF YOU WANT TO COME AND WATCH! http://amishaheadshave.eventbrite.co.uk/

August Update: The hair cut has happened... I know that usually you raise money and then do something but the opportunity came for the cut and I didn't want to risk backing out. So the cut is done (I now have less than an inch of hair) and the hair has been sent to the Little Princesses Trust. It means a lot to me to raise the £1000 for Womankind Worldwide so please do make a donation and help me reach the target. 

Watch the video of the haircut here.

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. I have decided to chop off nearly all my hair for Womankind Worldwide, a charity that does great work supporting womens' organisations around the work. They focus on women in conflict zones.

I am actually donating my hair to the Little Princesses Trust which will use it to make wigs for children with cancer. I have enough hair to make up to three wigs! I have 21 inches of hair (of which 20 inches will go....) so I hope to raise £50 per inch making my total £1000. 

Please contirbute by making a donation - we will be sharing updates and a film of the hair cut which is being sponsored by the salon Percy & Reed. 

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.

Contact me on twitter @amishaghadiali

 

The Full Story:

I was in the shower (the place where I make a lot of big decisions) a couple of weeks ago and I decided to cut all of my hair off and donate it to charity. I had wanted to do something else to fundraise for the charity Womankind Worldwide as I became an ambassador for them this year after doing that stand up comedy challenge for International Women’s Day. I realised this was the perfect thing.

Cutting off women’s hair has often been used as a punishment in conflict or in prisons. For many women their hair is an important part of their identity. And the style that they choose to wear is an important expression of who they are. I have always had long hair,apart from the one time I had a bob cut and thought that was a big deal. . I rarely even wear my hair up. I love having long, flowing hair that I can wear in different ways, fiddle with all day long and hide behind when I want to.

Although I always think that friends I have or women I see with very short hair look great. I have always seen it as something that I couldn’t do because I feel like so much of my femininity is caught up in my hair.

The idea of not having that anymore is terrifying but I have a feeling that it also might be strangely liberating. I wasn’t 100% sure that I wanted to do it, and started talking to friends and family. A few of my female friends were really excited about it, but most people asked me if I was sure or told me not to do it.

When I found out that I had enough hair to make wigs for up to three little girls with cancer, I knew that I had to do it. I have a couple of friends who are fighting cancer right now and I know that loosing their hair is a big part of what scares them. So I have decided to donate my hair to the Little Princesses Trust.

I have been excited but now the hair cut is just hours away, I am suddenly very nervous. Lots of strange and contradictory ideas are flashing through my mind. Will I will be judged and treated differently? What if I hate it? What if I like it so much that I have short hair for the rest of my life? Well, what I do know is that it will grow back. I am lucky to have healthy hair and so the personal worst case scenario is that I have to wait for it to grow out. It will take nearly two years to grow back to it’s current length and time goes fast. It’s an adventure to see what does happen, if I will feel like a different person and how people I know and people that I meet react to me.

The haircut is being sponsored by Percy & Reed, where Creative Stylist Lacey Hawkins will cut it. The process will be documented by photographer Sarah Leslie.

I hope that as well as challenging my own perceptions about my hair, and donating it to charity that I can raise money for Womankind Worldwide. They are an international women’s human rights charity working to help women transform their lives in Africa, Asia and Latin America.  They partner with women’s rights organisations who are challenging discrimination and violence.  Womankind delivers the essential support – funding, expertise, contacts and publicity – these women’s organisations need to amplify their voice, increase their impact and bring about greater change.

Having all my hair cut off by choice in a nice London hair salon is nothing like the traumatic experience that many women experience but it’s a gesture of solidarity and support.