Pad Heaven
Conversion of banana stems into sanitary pads
THE PROBLEM
Statistics show that in Kenya alone over 900,000 schoolgirls coming from poor backgrounds cannot afford to buy commercial sanitary pads. This leads to girls missing 3.6 million school days per month. Other options are available, like re-usable pads, but due to sanitary conditions this is not a viable option.
THE INNOVATION
Pad Heaven has come up with a method of producing sanitary pads from left-over banana stems, otherwise an agricultural waste product. This product is both biodegradable, environmentally friendly and creates local jobs in Kenya.
THE VISION
To empower women by creating local jobs for them and break their stigmatization during their period and to specifically reduce the amount of girls dropping out of school by 15% within 5 years. All this is to be achieved through use of materials that would otherwise have been considered waste.