For the girls

In Tanzania, most of the girls don’t go to school when they have their period, can you believe it? 

Pads (not to mention other feminine hygiene products) are a luxury item that very few families can afford. 

Some girls, even women, use papers or fabrics during their periods, with the possibility for infections this can cause. 

But most choose to stay home. 

This means that, for the fact of being a woman, at least one week a month they miss classes with the consequent risk of lowering their school level. 

Unfair, right? 

This is how `For the Girls’ came about, with the idea of ​​delivering sanitary napkins to the girls at Ngongongare Primary School. But not just any pads. We wanted them to be reusable, ecological, absorbent and made with local 100% cotton materials. 

Once again, we hired Ayubu, who was in charge of sewing these sanitary pads with colours, flowers, cheerful and fun fabric prints. This type of material was previously tried out by some girls to tell us if they felt comfortable with them. 

After its acceptance, we delivered toiletry bags made with beautiful kitenge fabrics, they contained: 4 reusable pads and soaps made with natural ingredients for proper intimate hygiene. 

Today there are 100 girls from Ngongongare Primary School who can attend school when they are on their period. 

In addition, this project opened the doors for helping another school that, knowing that we were handing out these hygienic sets among the girls, asked us for help for their students. 

We produced 50 kits for 50 girls. Once there we realized that this school needed a lot more help than just a few pads for the girls – we began a new adventure in a different school: Engejisosia Primary School.