Breaking Barriers: A man’s journey to success in menstrual health and hygiene pads

Mugenzi Napoléon:

Bishop Darlington Wolah, Is a Liberian, based in Rwanda and founder CEO of My Safepad is a sexual reproductive health and rights organization We provide education on menstrual hygiene management, access to menstrual products, and we are also into antimicrobial resistance awareness.

And we also work with health care facilities to provide antimicrobial products that are safe for them, their patients, given the fact that most of the health care facilities are not mainstreaming all the, like the curtains, the bedsheets that patients engage with, and those things, contact materials that are harmful for the human system.

So, we want to provide them quality materials. In addition to that, we also work with weavers, and institutions that are in need of antimicrobial fabrics to see how we can collaborate and provide them quality services

bishop growing up in the slum of Liberia, saw how women and girls struggle for menstrual products. Personally, in school, I saw a young girl who had her period unexpectedly and how she was being booed at, and that was so uncomfortable for him as a person.

And his backgrounds of education it comes to gender equality, masculinity, and women’s rights, he feel like women and girls need an opportunity to participate equally as men, to build their career, and decide what they want to do, and also make sexual and reproductive decisions in terms of when to have babies, what gender you want, and all of these things So coming from the right perspective,

I aspire to provide quality access and access to quality health care services, particularly sexual and reproductive health and rights, and with more focus on menstrual hygiene management Based on the fact that evidence has proven that lots of young girls in rural areas, in low-income families and communities, can now afford these basic disposable products that are very expensive for them, and a lot of them are being exposed to using all unhygienic materials, lapels, old cloths, including mattresses.

And some of these things are so uncomfortable for them, and not just uncomfortable, but expose them to a lot of health risks and infections and diseases that might even impact fertility later on in the near future.

Say: is hoping to expand across Africa, imparting about 200 million Africans, particularly women and girls, and providing them access to quality products and services, ranging from both products and that of education Regardless of where you are located, we want you to have access to education through a mobile means, and that’s why we’re here.

So now our clients are humanitarian actors, individuals who are philanthropists, who understand the issues in communities and want to create, impart. Businesses who have social corporate responsibilities,

that want to identify with girls who are in need of these basic products. NGOs, humanitarian actors, governments, for other sanitary materials that do not really focus on the infection part of their products added:

is the key on infection prevention and key on durability. and sustainability.

His product has been made to last for up to four years, so a girl will have to pay as low as 4,000, 3,000 francs, and then she has a product that lasts for four whole long years, compared to other disposable products or other products that, and aside from that, it also has an antimicrobial technology.

What antimicrobial does is it helps to prevent infections and bacteria and fungus that expose the user to infections, and particularly for girls in rural areas that have too much challenges, challenges about water, about hygiene, wash is already an issue, and for climate change as well. So this is how we’re trying to solve the complex problems, the complex questions about disposable, reusable products.

Mansion there’s a lot of questions about reusable products, about if it is safe, issues about water, issues about dry facility.

So our technology ensures that we combat the infection part of it, the bacteria part of it. All our young girls need to do is just wash it and use it, and we also have disposable pads, aside from our reusable pads, and that’s the world’s first biodegradable disposable pad, a one-time use pad.

It takes 24 months to degrade . for other disposable pads that stays in the environment for decades, we’re providing environmentally friendly products that are also sustainable and affordable for our users.

So far, we have worked in Liberia, and our experience in Liberia, Nigeria, and other African countries shows that there’s a high need for our products. Recently, we supplied 6,000 pads to the ECOWAS Commission who wants to do charity ,and there’s many other different humanitarian actors who are looking to provide not just reusable pads, but then quality reusable pads.

So we are gradually expanding, and we look forward to expanding across Rwanda and see how we can distribute to a lot of humanitarian actors and individuals.

Added is offer educational programs the core of what we do in access to menstrual hygiene management, access to awareness on antimicrobial resistance, and also how communities can have this information more accessibly.

We’re working on a mobile app right now that enables a girl in rural areas to access information just using her smartphone We’re also hoping to collaborate with the GSN company so that we can have an SMS service as well that provides this basic information Just to let you know, we have a manual already on menstruation, and that manual is called My First Period.

Bishop Darlington Wolah

It’s a guide to guide steps on what menstruation is about. If you are a first-time user or for a first-time user, this is the steps you need to follow how to cope with menstrual cramps, menstrual pain and discomfort.

So we go beyond just the products, just the education on how to change your path towards other sensitive experiences women may have during periods and exercises you need, food you need to help you stay healthy and reduce the pains and everything.

And lastly, we also work with schools, and we provide an education, work with partners to train their staff who also want to go out, training and education in communities.

He provide them with technical skills and also training on how to make paths by him self. So for young girls in the rural areas, that it will take hours to assess our products or hours to assess another product, and you only have the needle and the thread.

We teach them how to use his own lappers, his own piece of cloth, so that he have specific materials to use and he can pay more attention to that material, helping to reduce the ratio of them to getting infection, say he tackle the period of poverty and accessibility as well.

He said, a lot of girls in low-income communities, in low-income families can now afford, them the cost of the regular pad.

And first, it’s a pad, a disposable pad, every month, we’re providing women and girls products that is affordable and sustainable, so you’re able to save, and also cope with your schooling and other transportation and other things.

just need one product that lasts for three to four years, and he save a lot of money.

He say is also helping women and girls participate into work gatherings, social gatherings, being able to go to school and learn and make a living for themselves. Lastly, we’re also working with women and girls into our production site.

So we employ them, and then we train them on how to make these pads, then they work for us, and they earn a living while also learning how to make these innovative and create impact in communities.

and So far aside from our recent innovation, the GoPad, that is a disposable pad for biodegradable disposable pads. Can intend to work on the app that he told you to see how we can collaborate with MTM if they’ll be willing to provide some other charity services.

I think the issue about funding is always a challenge, and the fact that we’re a social enterprise, and our line of work is driven by impact more rather than cash giving, so we’re relying on collaboration.

But as I said, we intend to expand all across Africa and see how we can provide more and more services to women and girls and healthcare facilities in need of our products and services. Great.

Say there’s a lot he benefit of FinTech platforms like crowdfunding’s, a lot of donation platforms that can be used for fundraising to ensure that can subsidize the cost of our products and services for women and girls in rural areas.

instead of relying on development partners, he want to make the products more affordable and cheaper, rely on these crowdfunding’s platforms, fundraising platforms to generate funding, to subsidize price, to donate these products free of charge.

Another way benefit of the FinTech forum, it’s was exposure to digital payment systems for distribution networks, and like for pharmacies, for businesses that are involved into health, how can we have a digitalized platform, a system that payments can be easy for our user, and also for the FinTech, we believe that we can be able to, FinTech provides partnership with brands and social enterprise to create digital and payment solutions for bulk payments and also for purchasing on discounts and so forth.

And also, the key one is financial literacy for women and girls. A lot of women and girls do not have more ideas on how to manage their personal funding’s to ensure that it also goes towards menstrual period products, so they end up being embarrassed at times because of the lack of literacy and not being fully prepared, not budgeting for periods, for menstrual health, in terms of a whole lot of different complications with menstrual cramps and things, you might not be able to move out, let’s say some women want to stay indoors, so if they do not have the financial literacy to budget for these periods, it becomes a risk for them as women, and this is how we think FinTech can improve for me.

And lastly, when it comes to education and awareness through digital platforms, we are talking about building an app that a girl does not need a medical doctor to tell her about her body, not even me as the service provider.

All she needs is the app, and then she can engage with the app and learn everything about himself and be able to educate other people, and we’re talking about GSN Company having an SMS facility that girls can just send hi, and they receive information, select what information they want.

These are all digital platforms that we hope to collaborate with and explore, but then the issue about funding and support, Personally, I am very impressed with what you’re doing here as a woman as well, because we have faced the same challenges. Sanitary pads are crazy expensive out here, and we’re not all lucky to come from wealthy families.

Say he just want to send an invitation out to the government of Rwanda. They have been supportive, and development partners with the diplomatic circle in Rwanda, businesses and investors in Rwanda to look into menstrual health and hygiene, particularly promoting green period, and he know Rwanda is very key on green period, so add, as an institution are coming to complement the efforts of the government of Rwanda, complement the efforts of the Ministry of Health and health institutions in Rwanda to ensure that our health facility has access to antimicrobial, antibacterial products.

We’re also looking for weavers that want to get involved into antimicrobial fabrics and see how we can supply them and work with them, and also we’re encouraging them to look into their social property responsibilities and collaborate with institutions like ours or other menstrual hygiene and health institutions to ensure that women and girls in these rural areas have access to these products.

Every day, our girls menstruate, every day our girls face complex situations, complex challenges when it comes to menstrual period, every day our girls are using all unhygienic materials, all cloth, every day our girls contract infections from the use of these materials, and every day our girls are being exposed to infertility from untreated infections from the use of other unhygienic materials. It’s about time that we invest more into health because health means life.

Without a healthy life, we cannot have infrastructure, we cannot contribute to national development. So health is a core pillar of our development, and we must look at the key areas that our women cannot escape, the day-to-day affairs of women, a that’s menstrual health and hygiene.