Physical Health South Africa Project #32027

10000 Washable Sanitary Pads for African women

by Hoedspruit Training Trust

Project Report | Jul 9, 2020
The End of the Sanitary Pad Project...for now.

By MJ du Preez | The End of the Sanitary Pad Project...for now.

Due to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on our organisation, Hlokomela has had to relook all our activities and restructure accordingly to adapt to the challenges.

One of the activities that needed restructuring was the Sewing Project that was making our Washable Sanitary Pads. The Sewing Project has started making masks and buff to support the local agricultural sector to help protect their workers. This has been very lucrative for the ladies working in the Sewing Project, whilst also serving a very important purpose within the larger community.

The Sewing Project team is working very hard to make as many buffs and masks to also support local communities in this pandemic. These masks and buffs are sold to commercial farms but is also added to food parcels that Hlokomela is currently distributing to families in need.

Unfortunately the Sanitary Pad Project is one of the projects that had to be halted in the short term due to its higher cost. All funds raised will however still be allocated towards buying washable sanitary pads from other suppliers for distribution in local communities.

We hope that we can start this project up again in the future.

Hlokomela would like to thank everyone that has been supporting this project.

It is only through your generosity that we are able to to continue the work we are doing in rural Limpopo.

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Feb 25, 2020
Let it grow

By MJ du Preez | Media & Marketing Manager

The team

As promised, the team is growing. We'll be welcoming our new seamstress early March 2020, Yeahhh! Very exciting to see the team growing, toward larger production and of course bigger impact. Our new lady will be trained and developed with the support of our master seamstresses Mama Irene and Mama Johanna.

Even though she's already a seamstress super star, the main priority for the coming months will be to get her up to speed with our quality standards.

Partnership and training

Since our last report, we had the opportunity to develop new partnerships with local farms and other NGO's, with a view of expanding our distribution capacity. In fact we already started distribution of our pads directly to young female farmers and the feedbacks were encouraging and overwelming.

Our main objective here is to increase our local footprint, partnering with organisations that could help us gain access and trust to specific key populations who need sanitary pads (school, orphenage).

Production and distribution

Our production is now up and going fully. We relocated our Sewing project to a larger space on the other side of our building. This will allow us to keep on growing the team, while providing a better and cleaner working environemt for our seamstresses.

Our next focus remains twofold:

- Streamline and increase our production capacity, with a focus on quality and confort.

- Develop new local distribution channels through partner organisations and projects fan (yes, we have fans now).

The future

Once again we would like to thank GlobalGiving, local and international donors, partners and everyone involved in the project to start with.

We are more motivated than ever to make this project a success and our motto remains: "It always seems impossible until it's done." Nelson Mandela

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Dec 2, 2019
First Impact

By MJ du Preez | Media & Marketing Manager

The team

We've gone a long way since the sanitary pads project started almost a year ago. After many ups and downs, our team is now fully operational, and we are currently looking to add 2 to 3 more seamstresses to increase our production capacity.

Partnership and training

Our relationship with Dignity Dream strengthen after their visit at Hlokomela in September. They not only provided specific training towards manufacturing processes, hygiene compliance and best practice to our seamstresses, but also general training to our nurses and outreach teams on awareness, menstruation cycle, culture and behaviors change.

Production and distribution

After many drafts, prototypes, testing and feedback sessions, we've designed a version 1 of the pads that we are very proud of! Our main focus was confort for young girls and women who will use our pads. A massive team efforts during the last months on improving design, quality and longevity paid off. It allowed our production of high quality pads to reach above 2000 pads.

Our next focus is twofold:

- Streamline and increase our production capacity by employing and training new local staffs.

- Push our distribution efforts through our clinics, outreach, and school partnerships.

We've received some amazing feedbacks and supports from our local community and it is such a blessing to see the impact on our seamstress moral already.

The future

Thanks to the Global giving community, local and international donors, partners and all the people involved in the project, we can tell with confidence that the Sanitary Pads project is here to stay.

We are fighting everyday to increase our impact and support more young girls and womens just to be women, with dignity. We still have a long way to go, lots of battles to win, but we start to believe it's not impossible with your support.

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