Elizabeth Scharpf

SHE makes ink on CNBC and Global Citizen

in Blog  by connie lewin

“We believe that SHE’s approach has significant potential for scalability and thus could be an important step towards making women’s healthcare more accessible in these regions.” – says Josh Ghaim, Chief Technology Officer, Johnson and Johnson

CNBC and Global Citizen featured our expanded production and growing social enterprise across East Africa, thanks to a technical partnership with Johnson and Johnson.

Everything we do — whether it’s training farmers to supply us banana fiber or providing girls access to our go! pads — is thanks to our amazing network of champions like you.

Together, we’ve already made and distributed almost 200,000 pads to 10,000 girls throughout Rwanda and have created new income opportunities for 630 enterprising people.

And we’re just getting started. Read on.

SHE on CNBC: Why this Harvard grad has spent a decade making maxi pads out of banana fiber 

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SHE on Global Citizen: How Banana Fibers in Rwanda Are Helping Girls With Their Periods

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It Matters.

in Blog  by Elizabeth Scharpf

What’s worse: writing and publishing an opinion piece that may have consequences, OR being inconsequential?

This question loomed in front of me and 19 of my new Ford Public Voices Fellows as we kicked off our year-long program with The OpEd Project to ensure our ideas help shape the important conversations of our age. I’m joined with some of our nation’s top thinkers working in economic and social justice.

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Despite their top-notch thinking, individuals like my fellow fellows are often underrepresented in main stream media and public debate.  The root problem is not a lack of knowledge or experience, but a culture in which minority voices (especially women) rarely have the inside information, high-level support and inside connections to become influential on a large-scale.

Well, it’s time to change that!  But how do we do that?  Is it straight forward?  After the past 12 hours together, I’ve concluded that it actually isn’t!  In fact, there are many considerations that run through our minds before putting pen to paper.  Do I have the time?  Will this have impact?  And strikingly, will this have consequences?  Consequences can include formidable things like lack of safety, polarization, termination of funding.  So that leads fellows like us and others like us, making measured decisions. 

Is it worth it?  Absolutely.  Because we believe that not sharing our expertise will have more negative consequences than not doing anything at all.

Get ready to read this space!

Elizabeth Scharpf and SHE are featured in Nicholas Kristof's book A Path Appears.

SHE Featured in A Path Appears

in A Path Appears / press  by connie lewin

Nicholas Kristof’s and Sheryl WuDunn’s latest book, A Path Appears, features SHE. In this book, they feature “innovators who are using research, evidence-based strategies, and brilliant ideas of their own to prevent violence, improve health, boost education, and spread opportunity at home and around the world,” and concludes “social entrepreneurship” and for-profit organizations as the most promising models for change. Among these social entrepreneurs featured is SHE’s Founder and Chief Instigating Officer Elizabeth Scharpf!

We’re grateful for a spotlight on our work and most importantly, on the too-long overlooked issue of lack of access to menstrual health education and affordable products such as our SHE go! pads.

You can join the SHE movement today. Become a SHE Trailblazer and invest today.