MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name

Menstrual Health management and Entrepreneurship development

One-line solution summary.

Promoting good menstrual hygiene management and Entrepreneurship development among girls, adolescent mothers and women through training how to make Re-usable sanitary pads initially for self and later for commercial purposes.

Elevator pitch

What is your solution?

Training how to make Re-usable sanitary pads is designed to address Barriers to the target beneficiaries' good menstrual health management and economic independence through promoting entrepreneurship development. During the training course, our team provides full package about menstruation and later on, successful passionate trainees about making pads for sale are organized in self help groups through which young girls, women and teen moms produce the reusable sanitary pads for sale and form savings groups which will help to Economically emancipate the women. We use locally available sewing machines and sewing materials which are not only good absorbents but also reduce on energy consumption during the production of pads as opposed to the process of making disposable sanitary pads.

This solution was developed learning from the idea of reusability of face masks that become common due to the out break of the covid 19 pandemic hence it's from this idea that we thought of saving mother nature through making re-usable pads due to high rates of energy consumption during manufacturing of disposable pads, the high levels of toxins and the poor disposal of the used products hence this had became rampant due to increased numbers of menstruating girls and women

What specific problem are you trying to solve?

Our team is trying put an end to poor menstrual health management and poor standards of living driven by the extremely grinding poverty affecting many young girls who are just starting their cycles, adolescent mothers and vulnerable marginalized women in wakiso. Challenges associated with effective menstrual health management include lack of access to clean effective absorbents, lack of access to soap, water and lack of privacy. In addition, inadequate social support, presence of taboos lead to psycho-social consequences and these are masterminded by the periods poverty which is statistically experienced by 25% of all menstruators. Globally 3.5billion women have monthly periods, according to charitable organization days for girls over 500million women do not have access to feminine hygiene products and hence 30% of girls leave school due to lack of sanitary pads in rural areas of Uganda.

In our target community, almost 70% of girls starting their menstrual periods dropout of school, get impregnated due to lack of menstrual needs due to the fear, shame and anxiety, they're forced into sexual activities which put them at risk of becoming teen moms, contacting deadly diseases and death due to attempting unsafe abortions. This is a serious problem facing 90% of the girl child and women in our community of kasanje Town-council. In 2019, a study on the status of menstrual health management by the ministry of education unveiled dreadful statistics showing about 23% of Uganda girls between 12-18 years dropout of schools when they begin menstruation.

That's scope of our problem.

Who does your solution serve? In what ways will the solution impact their lives?

The solution primarily aims to reach out to young girls in and out of schools, adolescent/Teenage mothers and vulnerable marginalized women at large. While the focus of the project is on girls' and women's menstrual economic needs, it will work with boys and men for promotion if gender equality. Our solution is designed to address barriers to those people's proper menstrual hygiene management and economic independence through training how to make re-usable pads from locally available cheap materials will not only help to keep young girls in school during their cycles, end sexual exploitation in exchange for money and needs, bring an end to teenage pregnancies which results into early or Forced marriages but also checks on the rampant rates of the grinding extreme poverty in kasanje sub-county.

Our solution is socially feasible, economically viable and environmentally sound since it will check on the rampantly growing rates of poor disposal of used up menstrual needs, and toxic/health effects of manufactured disposable products.

Since after training several people, we are intending to create social collective enterprises that will encourage young girls to earn and save. This will also help parents save something aside for catering for day today needs of life for their respective families and also avail school dues to keep these people in school. Hence this will help towards achieving sustainable development goals SDG1(no poverty),SDG3( good health and wellbeing),SDG4(Quality education), SDG5(Gender equality), SDG8(decent work and economic growth), SDG10(Reduced inequalities) and SDG11(sustainable cities and communities)

What steps have you taken to understand the needs of the population you want to serve?

Research has been made in the local market, because of being so economical, durable, toxins free,less energy consumption and reusable our sanitary product is on high demand especially in our target areas that are highly poverty stricken. I have volunteered in a community based organization(Tuezuule initiative which i also contributed to its foundation to address these needs) working to improve the livelihoods of the girl child and women generally.

Which aspects of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Improving healthcare access and health outcomes; and reducing and ultimately eliminating health disparities (Health)

Our solution's stage of development:

Pilot: An organization deploying a tested product, service, or business model in at least one community

Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution—in other words, what have you accomplished to date?

I selected pilot because in our project of promoting menstrual hygiene management, we have been teaching and testing of to make re-usable sanitary pads which proved to be a far better improvement from using unhygienic menstrual materials such as blankets, disposable sanitary pads etc.

we are currently testing our pilot in the community of Jandira village, kasanje towncouncil(our products has been approved ) and over 100 people have used the product and recommended it but due to scarcity of resources we have no means of giving more in production.

Where our solution team is headquartered or located:

Jandira, Uganda

Team Lead:

Ssewalu Abdul