It’s go time!
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!