Ripple Effect of Teaching Women how to Make Reusable Feminine Hygiene Products
Education and the Women of Zimbabwe
The Future of Hope Foundation (TFoHF) is a non-profit organization committed to helping women and girls, especially orphans, build a better life and a brighter future in Zimbabwe. Its mission includes helping women in inclusive, sustainable, and environmentally friendly ways. As part of this mission, they address basic needs.
Young women and girls can be at a natural disadvantage during the menstrual cycle each month due to period poverty. Girls in school tend to lose precious learning time as they are forced to skip school and sometimes drop out of school completely because of not having suitable sanitary pads and underwear. Outside school young women are unable to work and sometimes miss opportunities to take part in community activities that are important for their well-being and advancement because of period poverty. Not having access to sanitary pads is common and often taken for granted in many countries, but not for women in Zimbabwe.
One solution to help schoolgirls and young women come out of this predicament is to donate sanitary pads and send them to the places where TFoHF works in Zimbabwe. However, single-use sanitary pads are not the most proper as they are expensive, and this cost is not affordable every month for most women in Zimbabwe. Sanitary pads without proper underwear to hold them in place are no good either. Due to these challenges, TFoHF looked for a more sustainable and environmentally friendly way to help young women and girls by lessening the impact of period poverty.
A Sustainable Idea is Born – The Community Women-led Reusable Sanitary Pads Project
TFoHF started the production and distribution of reusable sanitary pads. TFoHF team not only distribute ready-made sanitary pads and underwear but also trained the women and girls to make the underwear and reusable sanitary pads themselves. The solution addresses 4 things – education, empowerment, independence, and sustainability.
It Takes a Village
The project started with support from DanChurchAid – Village Earmarking Project in 2019, the Embassy of the Netherlands in Zimbabwe 2020, Eschler Textil GmbH 2021, MEY and Chido Govera Friends EV 2021.
Mey, from Albstadt, Germany, supports TFoHF by regularly supplying underwear to be sent to the woman in the villages of Zimbabwe. The underwear is hand-delivered by TFoHF with help from Solar Data Systems, a business based in Bethel, CT, USA.
In summer 2020, Mey also donated three non-electric sewing machines along with the underwear. Eschler Textil GmbH from Baligen, Germany, donated washable and reusable fabrics. With the donated supplies and funding from the Embassy of the Netherlands, TFoHF produced and distributed a total of 1200 pads by the end of October 2020.
Next, the team selected 10 women in each village to attend a training in December 2020. Since then, Chido and the team at TFoHF have trained more than 200 girls and women to make and wash underwear and sanitary pads. These women have shared their knowledge with others in their villages. Reusable and washable sanitary pads are contributing to a sustainable way of helping women and girls not miss out on important social activities.
Women in Zimbabwe Producing Sanitary Pads
Increasing Outreach
More training, more sewing machines, and more comfortable, natural, and/or organic materials are needed in Zimbabwe. Due to infrastructure constraints in Zimbabwe, the electric grid often shuts down and is not available in some of the remote areas. In places without electricity, a manual sewing machine is a handy piece of equipment. Hence old-fashioned, manual sewing machines without dependency on electricity are necessary. Natural, organic, easy-to-wash, and comfortable fabrics are not produced locally, hence they are not readily available. TFoHF would appreciate any support and help in the local production of organic fabrics to make more comfortable sanitary pads.
Solar Data Systems has a new goal to help TFoHF and the women of Zimbabwe. They aim to build an off-grid solar plant with storage to overcome the lack of electricity and help the villages be independent of their utility provider. A solar plus storage system would help them with electric sewing machines, and it would help TFoHF’s Mushroom-based Integrated Food Production System project that teaches women and girls how to be sustainable mushroom farmers. Under this project, TFoHF also produces mushrooms for sale to local farmers and this requires stable electricity. The lack of electricity provides a challenge for that project as well because the mushrooms need to be refrigerated after harvesting and before going to the market for sale.
Please, contact Solar Data Systems for more information on the solar plus storage project and how you can help.
