STARTING THE RIPPLE EFFECT
First, we trained 50 Community Health Workers (CHWs) across Rwanda in basic business skills to sell pads peer-to-peer. By cutting out multiple middlemen, they sold existing pads directly at a lower price and earned a commission. The CHWs reached 5,000 people, shared health information, helped us build our distribution network and provided valuable data for future improvements.
Now we’re jumpstarting local businesses to manufacture and distribute the pads so that they are more affordable for all, and so that local entrepreneurs – from the banana farmer to the pad assembler – can earn a consistent income and start the ripple effect that will help them and their communities thrive.
MATH FOR RWANDA
2.8 mil
menstruating
females
$215
in lost income per female per year
18%
miss school because no affordable pads
$115 mil
potential loss in GDP per year
BREAKING THE SILENCE
To eradicate the taboo of menstruation, spark open dialogue and instigate policy change at a local and global level, we launched an awareness campaign. It worked: in the 2010 budget, the Rwandan government included a new sanitation budget line item of $35,000, part of which was to procure menstrual pads for girls in government schools.
It also committed to include essential health and hygiene content in the national curriculum so that it can reach all schools and clinics. We’ve already witnessed things changing for the better—girl’s bathrooms being built and allocated hygiene supplies in schools and in the workplace.
WE AREN'T STOPPING THERE.
Banana farmers in Rwanda throw away tons of trunk fiber every year. We provide them with equipment and training, so that they can process it and sell it to us.
Banana farmers in Rwanda throw away tons of trunk fiber every year. We provide them with equipment and training, so that they can process it and sell it to us.
We take it to our community factory to be cut, carded, washed, fluffed, and solar dried. Our manufacturing process is U.S. patent approved!
We take it to our community factory in Ngoma, Rwanda to be cut, carded, washed, fluffed, and solar dried. Our manufacturing process is U.S. patent approved!
Now it’s ready to be made into menstrual pads, wrapped in eye-catching designs, and sold at an affordable price-point to women and to schools, where they can be given to girls who need them.
Now it’s ready to be made into menstrual pads, wrapped in eye-catching designs, and sold at an affordable price-point to women and to schools, where they can be given to girls who need them.
We don’t stop there. We are debunking myths and taboos about menstruation with our health and hygiene education in schools and in the community.
We don’t stop there. We are debunking myths and taboos about menstruation with our health and hygiene education in schools and in the community.
By 2017, we will have a replicable blueprint that has multiple positive outcomes:
girls reached
jobs created
across the
value chain
profitable
franchises
launched
