Can you imagine — having to miss school or work — because you it’s that time of the month, when mother nature makes her routine visit? Well, every 28 days, millions of young women — including girls — miss work or school, in developing countries. That’s a whopping 50 days per year — and the reason, is because of the limited access to affordable maxi-pads.
Did you know, that:
• Premium priced imported brands cost more than a day’s wages – a pack of imported pads cost $2.25 vs. $1 in Rwanda, SHE’s pilot country.
• Sub-optimal alternatives such as cloth rags, tree bark, and even mud, fail to prevent leakage and put girls and women at risk for severe reproductive health consequences, mostly as a result of the lack of a clean and accessible water supply.
Thank goodness for SHE (Sustainable Health Enterprises) — a social venture, who’s mission is to invest in people, as well as ideas — that are often overlooked (taboo) as social and economical change.
The SHE28 campaign is its initiative to address this pressing and silent problem through innovative product design and sustainable economic opportunities for women and their communities. Take a look at its campaign video:
SHE has creatively innovated a patent-pending, low-cost and eco-friendly menstrual pad — the SHE LaunchPad — which makes an absorbent core for pads from agro-waste (banana fibers), that is free of any chemicals or super absorbent polymers. The SHE28 campaign originally launched in Rwanda in 2009. This makes it possible for girls and women — to access their much need menstrual products for only 5 cents per pad. 
SHE is coupling its LaunchPad with a sustainable business model that will create economic opportunities all across the value chain – from the banana farmers who will sell their banana fiber to SHE to the women entrepreneurs that will be equipped with business skills training and education to sell the LaunchPads in their communities. For every women-led and operated business that SHE invests in, approximately 100 jobs are created and approximately 100,000 girls and women have access to affordable menstrual pads.”
On the advocacy front, SHE has been successful in busting taboos about menstruation. The SHE team hit the streets of Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, in 2010 with its “Breaking the Silence on Menstruation” event. SHE, along with 10 other leading Rwandan organizations, marched down the streets in Kigali and held a public discussion with girls, women & men about how to break down menstrual taboos that serve as a barrier to girls’ education. As a result, the Rwandan government placed a new line item in the national budget for a $35,000 procurement of menstrual pads for the poorest girls.
Join Media Maven and the SHE28 campaign — to help SHE revolutionize access to maxi-pads!
Here’s How:
1. Give $28. Support SHE.
2. Break the silence and go viral — share the SHE28 campaign video with everyone you know!
3. Get the word out – tell your friends to support SHE on Twitter – donate your voice (link to Thunderclap)
4. Follow SHE on its website and blog or find them on Twitter and Facebook.
