Prints 4 Pads

Oct 17, 2019, By Susan Schmitz

We recently partnered up with AFRIpads on a project to help girls in Africa to stay in school.

'“Unable to afford or access proper menstrual products, many girls and women rely on crude, improvised materials like scraps of old clothing, pieces of foam mattress, toilet paper, leaves, and banana fibers to manage their menstruation - all of which are unhygienic, ineffective, and uncomfortable. This is hardly what we consider a "solution".

Faced with frequent, embarrassing leaks and a susceptibility to recurrent infections, the impact is that millions of girls and women experience their monthly period as something that prevents them from engaging in daily life – whether this is going to school or work, or carrying out their normal domestic responsibilities.

The critical unavailability of sanitary products in developing countries is a major barrier to education for girls of school-going age. The inability to effectively manage menstruation contributes to absences of up to 4-5 school days each month, equating to as much as 20% of the academic year intentionally skipped, simply due to menstruation.

Eventually many of these girls drop out of school entirely, increasing their likelihood of teen pregnancy health complications and early marriage, and further limiting their future career and economic opportunities.

~ AFRIpads\

Thanks to our generous and kind-hearted supporters, we were able to help 480 girls throughout Kenya and Uganda!

One AFRIpads deluxe kit can provide the resources needed to keep a girl in school for an entire year.

Your donations totaled $2280.00. Wahoooo! This was enough to purchase 480 deluxe AFRIpads kits including 4 reusable sanitary pads and a carrying case along with “Girl Talk” graphic novel style educational booklets about menstruation. Our cofounder April Howland and I also enhanced your donation with a pair of cotton panties for each girl.

Billy from Wild Eye with the delivery to their Nairobi office from AFRIpads.

Here’s how our donors made a difference in the world…

Several impoverished villages near Nairobi, Kenya

With the help of the team at Wild Eye Safaris, over 300 girls in several struggling villages near Nairobi will soon be receiving their kits to help them to stay in school during their monthly flow.

This is a thank you message to all of the generous donors from Grace, a vital team member at the Wild Eye Mara Camp. She and her teammate Mary will personally be distributing the kits.

A medical clinic in the Masai Mara area of Kenya

A case of kits was delivered to a new medical clinic that was recently developed by the Africa Foundation. They will be distributing them to girls that visit their clinic for their health needs. The entire contribution to this area was funded by a generous donation by Julie Harper. Listen to their heartfelt thank you below:

A boarding school for physically and mentally disabled girls in Kenya

The team at Wild Eye will also be distributing kits to girls with mental and physical disabilities that reside in a boarding school in Kenya. Without the assistance of this facility, families would not have the means to properly care for their children with special needs.

Funding for this school was made possible by the generosity of Marlene Emerson. Mary from Wild Eye has a special thank you message for her below:

teenage school girls in underdeveloped areas of Uganda

The GIRL Empowerment Coalition in Uganda distributed kits to several areas in rural Uganda. Young mothers and girls at risk of dropping out of school greatly benefitted from this effort.