Elizabeth Scharpf reporting live from Rwanda….You make maxi pads out of banana trees? Yeah right. Check out our investment in the overlooked, the taboo, the small things, that have a huge multiplier effect! The whole SHE-bang is here!
WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT
Guest post by Tyson Huffman, Acting Chief of Production
I’m proud to introduce to you go! pads, our pilot product. We just distributed them to 43 girls and women at our partner institution, IPRC in Kibungo, Rwanda. Our production lead, Marie Louise, led a discussion about menstruation, hygiene, and how to use our product. I was blown away! Marie Louise is destined for great things within our organization. She is one of the best public speakers I have ever seen. We then gave the students 2 months worth of go! Pads. We are anxiously awaiting their feedback so that we can improve our product.
What a ride! To get here we had to take a substandard facility and make it not only useable but hygienic. We installed electricity and water to the building. Electricity was not easy. We installed fuses and breakers. Even with those safety mechanisms in place we burned 2 motors and a pump. We installed a direct ground. In the US the ground goes directly back to the source of power. We improvised a copper rod buried in salt.
For water we installed a large tank that we elevated so that we had good pressure. Water service is sporadic here so we needed a tank to ensure we were always supplied. Because we don’t use any harmful chemicals we use a lot of water. We added a second tank so that we could recycle our process water. We only use about 2 gallons of water a day.
A sealed room was necessary for final pad assembly. We knocked down some walls and created a sealed sliding door. We are installing a blower that will create positive pressure within the room. This will ensure that nothing like dust or bacteria can enter our assembly room.
There’s more to share – stay tuned for part two!
Post by Sylvere Mwizerwa, Business Development Officer, SHE Rwanda
I would like to first express my words of thanks to Barry and Dolly Segal and their family for their support of SHE and sub-Saharan Africa initiatives.
The Segal Family Foundation’s annual conference was wonderful and unique. I learned the best and polite ways to ask professional questions in front of a crowd of people with different backgrounds. The conference helped me to grow as a person!
I met many like-minded people that do similar work that we do. Michael Wilkerson, the CEO of Tugende, a moto transportation company in Uganda, shared helpful advice on how to approach governments when it comes to reducing taxes and forming public-private partnerships.
For example, Dr. Laura Stachel from We Care Solar, a social enterprise that distribute solar boxes to countries in Africa and Asia, personally taught me how she was able to form successful partnerships with government institutions. We Care Solar has partnerships with Ministries of Health and Ministries of Education which has helped them to distribute their products to hospitals and clinics at a lower price. Her model is amazing and is very similar to ours.
As the Business Development Officer, I am focused on reducing our supply chain and production costs. It was great to therefore meet Robina Sarah Naluwooza from Set Her Free from Uganda who recommended to potential new suppliers. This will help SHE Rwanda to drive down our costs during our operations.
The speeches, plenary sessions and lunch table discussions were really good opportunities to share our thoughts and discuss in large the challenges that we are facing and the way to solve these. I have formed a strong network among all types of social entrepreneurs.