More Pics

In case you have been wondering what Pads for Progress is exactly...

Pads for Progress aims to produce and supply reusable sanitary pads to disadvantaged girls in and around the Kakamega area in an effort to support gender equality in schools. The World Health Organization estimates that 1 in 10 school-aged girls in Africa miss one or more days each month during their menstruation. In a country such as Kenya where GPA and class rank based scholarships play a integral role in a student’s ability to attend a secondary school or even a university, a lack of sanitary supplies puts girls at a significant academic disadvantage.

While on this trip I have seen gender discrimination that I could not have even imagined before I came here. Women and girls are not given as many educational opportunities or encouragement and are therefore forced into a cycle of financial dependency on men. Due to this lack of education, women currently also make up 75% of the agricultural labor force in Kenya. I have talked with numerous women, some educated and some not, about this problem and all have led me to the same conclusion: If we can fight to make women financial independent by providing them with equal education and academic support as well as providing them with income generating activities, we will have taken the first step towards gender equality in Kenya and in Africa.

Pads for Progress addresses both of these ideas. The project provides a unique business opportunity in the form of an income generating activity to select tailoring girls from disadvantaged backgrounds by teaching them how to make the reusable pads and providing them with business enterprise training. At the same time this project also aims to buy the pads from the girls and supply them to disadvantaged school girls in the ACCES schools in order to keep these girls from missing school during their menstruation. Too many NGOs, like ACCES, and individual Kenyan girls struggle to buy sufficient disposable pads to keep them in school during their menstruation. One reusable pad kit can be washed and reused for up to five years, proving these NGOs and girls with a more economical, sustainable, and environmentally friendly way to handle their periods while staying in school.

Pads for Progress has already been under way for about three weeks now. The girls have finished the first couple samples to provide in a pilot run of the product to 40 girls in one of the ACCES schools. Some of the tailoring girls have even asked if they can make some for themselves and their friends which speaks to the potential popularity of this project! After the pilot run the product will be modified on the basis of questionnaires evaluating the efficiency of the product and then opened up to the greater Kakamega market by the tailoring girls and with the help of ACCES.

I truly believe this project has a huge potential in the Kakamega market as well as in the greater Kenyan market. However, in order to continue the project, I am looking for funding to ensure the long-term sustainability and expansion of the project. I have begun an online fundraising campaign which ends on Friday, June 26 and which you can access at http://fsdinternational.org/donate/projects/Lang.

This is just one project to help alleviate the gender inequality in Kenya, but I really believe that it can go a long way. If it does nothing else, it will certainly change the lives of the eight tailoring girls who I have hand-picked to help lead the project, but I know it is going to do a lot more. I would really appreciate any support you can offer and the website allows for direct tax-free donations that you can make with your credit card. Thank you so much in advance for your help!

Pad-Making Workshops

One of the girls from the workshop and me after she attempted to teach me to use a sewing machine.


One group of girls making their first pad samples.


The first full pad kit! (I love the colors)


My entire pad-making team right after I picked them!



Pads for Progress is going really well! We had our pad-making workshop last Thursday and all thirty of the girls were able to make kits on their own by the end of the day. My good friend Emma (the pad-making expert) came in to help lead the session, considering I know nothing about sewing, and she did a fabulous job. The business enterprise workshop the next day was also great. My friend Steve who works with microfinance groups all over Kakamega came in to lead it and really got the girls excited about the market potential for their product.

After the workshop I viewed the samples of all thirty girls and then picked the eight most diligent and best pad-makers to comprise of my pad-making team. All eight girls were really enthusiastic about the project and when I went back yesterday to see how much they have accomplished I was blown away by how hard and fast they are working. Some of the girls even shyly asked if they could make some reusable pads for themselves and their sisters and one teacher asked if I would make a reusable pad kit for each of her daughters.

During the workshops there was one girl who was always the first to offer to sew something, to ask a question, and to offer one of my colleagues or me a seat. I immediately respected this girl’s tremendous work ethic and general jovial manner. I knew right away I wanted her on the team. Then during our lunch break on the second day of workshops this girl asked me if she could talk to me privately in the other room for a minute. She looked as if she was about to tear up so I said of course and she quickly led me into another room.

She said, “I need to show you something that makes me really sad.” After checking to make sure no one else was around, she lifted up her skirt to reveal a bizarre looking rash/ pigmentation change on her thigh.

“What is this?” she asked me, obviously trusting in the stereotype that all white people over in Kenya are doctors here to help people with medical issues. I told her I had no idea and that I was not by any means a doctor and that she should probably go to the hospital to have it checked out. Images of Kaposi’s Syndrome and Melanoma were flashing through my head. She said that the hospital did not know what it was and could not test her further unless she paid them more money which she did not have.

The girl then went on to describe the constant pain she feels in her leg as well as in her chest and the fact that her eye sight seemed to be deteriorating. I asked her quietly if she had ever had an HIV test and she responded in a whisper that she had not and did not need one. AIDS is rarely spoken about here. Then she asked me in a chillingly calm voice, “Am I going to die?”

I immediately said no, thinking this girl is only sixteen! Then I thought about the fact that my host family had already lost two out of their eight children and that two girls living with our family are their because they have been orphans for most of their lives.

“Can you help me please?” she asked.

I felt directly responsible for this girl. I had no idea what was on her leg or how serious it was but this girl was putting her health in my hands and I had no idea what to do. As much as I wanted to get involved and take her immediately to get an HIV test, I wondered if I would be the one that she wanted beside her when she got that test (I had only known her about two weeks) and if I was capable of helping her cope with the results.

I told her I would do some research and come back the next day. When I went back she started crying and telling me she was in even more pain that day and being able to see the blackboard was becoming impossible. She sobbed asking me, “Do you know if I am going to die yet?” I told her I thought she would be okay but that I wanted to bring a doctor who worked for ACCES to see her. She did not like this idea which seemed strange to me.

Later I found out from some coworkers that this girl had lived with her impoverished parents until one day the girl’s mother had come home to find her father with another woman and simply left the family. Besides sexually abusing the girl, the father had no need for a daughter so she too was forced to leave. She went to live with a more financially stable lady who earned her living as a prostitute. Soon this lady’s lifestyle grew on the girl and she quickly became pregnant. This girl knew she could not raise this baby and that being a single mother in Kenya is very difficult so, being that abortion is illegal in Kenya, she induced an abortion on her own by taking local herbs.

I was shocked by this story and could hardly believe that this girl was the same girl who I had been working with. My coworkers suggested that possibly the abortion or her previous lifestyle had something to do with her rash. I went back to the school and asked the girl if there was anything else that she wanted to tell me about herself and her past so that I could help her and she just looked down and the floor and said really quietly, “It is very bad at home.”

I am bringing the doctor from ACCES with me today to go see her again and to check in on the further progress on the pads. The hard work, dedication, and enthusiasm of some of these girls, in spite of the many difficulties that life has presented to them, has been truly inspiring. I would have never guessed that girl was suffering in the way that she was had she not pulled me aside to ask me whether or not she was going to die.

People here have warned all of us not to get too involved with people like this girl because you might find yourself constantly paying doctor bills and taking her to the hospital. I totally understand this reasoning. However, I have to wonder, how involved is too involved? How can you turn away from a person who so clearly needs help that you may be able to provide? Would if whatever this girl has is curable but without medical treatment she will die? Who wants that on their conscience? As young and naive as I might be, I find myself also wondering, are we simply being realistic to think that we can't help everyone, or are we selling ourselves short?

Fundraising!

Please help to support Pads For Progress by donating today at http://fsdinternational.org/donate/projects/Lang. All donations are welcome and can be made tax-free directly on the website using a credit card! Pictures and updates on the huge success of the pad-making workshop and buisness enterprise workshop last week are coming soon! Thank you all in advance for your support!

A HUGE Thanks!

A HUGE thanks goes out to Elizabeth Meeks from Humanicare who single-handedly sent ACCES a package of sample pads free from the US in under a week. How did she do this? She literally mailed a package from the US to "small brown buidling # 456, dirt road, the middle of nowhere, Kakamega, Kenya" and it got here in less than a week. She is currently my hero.

Project Pads for Progress is underway and I am very excited to be going back to the Imara Tailoring School today to present the pad samples (thanks to Elizabeth Meeks and Humanicare) and patterns for our pad-making workshops that will be starting on Thursday. We will also be having our small business workshop on Friday for the seamstresses at Imara and then production starts Monday. It is all happening so fast! I never would have guessed that I would be working with feminine sanitary products in Kenya...

Pads for Progress has also recieved a huge amount of support from various people in the Kakamega community and I cannot tell you how much their time and effort has touched me and made this project that much more possible and exciting. I find out if I get the grant from the FSD today or tomorrow so my fingers are crossed!

In unrelated news: I was out running the other day and was asked to tryout for a soccer team (I have not played soccer since eighth grade). Of course I attended the tryouts thinking that they would not be that difficult since it was the only girls team (of any sport) in the disrict and the girls did not even wear shoes. Let's just say, I was wrong. The girls were amazing and I provided endless comic releif for them during the two and a half hour tryout. One girl was even an Olympic medalist from Bei Jing in gymnastics and claimed to be playing soccer because it was the only sport she could play in the area as a girl and that it was the only way she could stay in shape for gymnastics. A little bit intimidating? I am not sure if I made the team (the coach did not speak English) but he told me to come back this week. I am about 90% sure I was asked back simply because my skill level entertained the girls so much (including my attempt at a header- not pretty) and because they wanted to say they had a myzungu (white person) on their team. I was by far the worst one at the tryouts and probably made a fool of not only myself but my country. However, the girls were absolutely amazing and so much fun and I had a great time. When in Kenya. Lesson learned: not wearing shoes does not equal not good at soccer.

A Few Pics

Teaching the women to do some exercises last Saturday.

All of the FSD summer interns from Duke during Orientation.

Four girls (out of about 50) whose nails I paint on a weekly basis. I somehow am the town nail salon.

My little sister Grace (1) and I playing outside last week.


My newest bedmate (along with his three friends).

Highlights So Far This Week

1. A started working on my grant due Friday which is very tedious by also very exciting... Even if I don't get the money, everyone keeps saying it is a very "rewarding" experience. The only reward I want after writing eight pages single-spaced is the actual grant! I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

2. I woke up last night to what I thought was two mice chasing each other under my bed. It turned out to be two lizards the size of my head chasing three cockroaches. I finally turned on the lights when I heard a crunch about a foot from my face as one of the lizards bit off the head of one of the cockroaches. I screamed jumping up and down on my bed until Mama Mary came running in to save me butt naked. I am now double scarred for life and cannot sleep with the lights out.

3. A young man followed me home from work yesterday engaging in petty conversation ubtil the end of the walk when he asked me to go out with him on Friday night to try cow piss (a delicacy?). There's no way to be sure.

4. I have malaria. However, its not as dramatic as you might think. I've just been really groggy and flu-like. I also keep having flash backs to the computer game Oregon Trail from when I was in elementary school. Every five minutes the game would be like beep beep beep "Genevieve has fallen ill with malaria and you must delay your trip three days."

5. We have what I call a "chicky door" which is similar to a doggie door except for chickens. My host family owns about fifty chickens which come and go freely in the house through the chicky door and always sleep in the house (yes... It takes some getting used to). Well my little one-year old sister Grace likes to play with the chickens and she's just big enough to fit through the chicky door. Well the other night I thought one of the chickens was trying to come in for the night through the little door and in a fit of rage (the wake me up at five fifteen every mornong along with the new born baby who then cries until eight - not a fan of the chickens) I locked the chicky door. It was my little sister Grace. Not good.