Having had a successful training of the women, men and youth of Samburu in North Eastern, Kenya, on how to make their own sanitary pads as a way of supporting girls education and empowering women, it was time for TVT to move west to the shores of Lake Victoria. In partnership with Mrs. Rose Omia, a woman whose passion is empower other women, TVT took the concept of Villachic re-usable sanitary pads to women group leaders of Bondo. The three day training programme took place at the Kochola Primary school in Kisumu county, from 26th – 29th August 2015. TVT Team composed of the lead Consultant Dr.Tabitha Murerwa,CEO,Anne Kalothi and TVT trainer Mr.Peter Mbugua arrived in Kachola, Bondo, armed with skills and enthusiasm to empower 27 women leaders to design, produce and packsge, three different types and sizes of villachic reusable sanitary pads.
By the end of the three days the participants were able to make three designs of the sanitary pads and more important they were equipped with the skills to go and train members of their respective groups. On the graduation day the women exuded with confidence and they were only talking of how how they would turn their new project into a viable income generating project by working together with local leaders. Pictures taken on various training days show how engaged the trainees and trainers were throughout the training period. The most important part of training is how to wear the pads and how to take care of them. They say photos speak a thousands words and therefore visit TVT photo gallery for very captivating and inspiring images of men and women making reusable sanitary pads.
TVT trainers of trainees like Peter Mbugua are drawn from various TVT community groups across the country who have demonstrated great competence in training others. Peter comes from Bolesa group in Salgaa, Nakuru County and he is a part of the TVT capacity building team that moves from one county to another empowering communities to acquire skills of producing reusable pads as and when they need them, instead of waiting for donations of disposable pads, which are unpredictable especially for those in poor rural villages. Unlike the disposable sanitary pads, Villachic reusable pads are environmentally friendly and one packet of 6 pads can be used for more than one year. They are affordable and easy to sew with hands or machines. There is no age limit when it comes to making villachick reusable pads. In fact the old women over 70 years old have demonstrated to be so good at making the pads while sitting together.
See example of Kitheo women group in Meru county.
TVT hopes to partner with county government in order to support women to produce many pads to be stocked in schools for use by the girls.
To see get information on the TVT reusable sanitary pads project, follow the link below:
Reusable Sanitary Pads