WOMAN OF PASSION: Keeping girls in school
Florence Kamaitha is the founder of Pad Heaven Initiative, a manufacturer of reusable and non-reusable sanitary pads. PHOTO| MARTIN MUKANGU
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“When I asked the head teacher, he informed me that it was that time of the month for the girls. He said it so matter-of-factly, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. I knew that I had to do something.”
This is the day that the seed that bore her business was sowed – but she didn’t know it yet. She thought she was just helping out. And for the weeks and months that followed she was on social media every day raising funds to buy pads.
Did you know that out of 10 Kenyan girls who miss school because of their menstrual periods, one of them eventually drops out of school? These are the numbers that keep Florence Kamaitha up at night.
They were what put her back on track the numerous times she flirted with the idea of upgrading her CV and jumping back into employment when her journey to entrepreneurship became rough.
Florence stumbled into her passion five years ago when she and a group of friends fundraised to buy desks for a primary school in Thika.
On the day that the group delivered the desks, she noticed that there were many more boys than girls running around the school compound.
“When I asked the head teacher, he informed me that it was that time of the month for the girls. He said it so matter-of-factly, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. I knew that I had to do something.”
This is the day that the seed that bore her business was sowed – but she didn’t know it yet. She thought she was just helping out. And for the weeks and months that followed she was on social media every day raising funds to buy pads.
THE STUBBORN GIRL
Florence describes herself as stubborn. She has always been fighting the norm. Her parents raised her to be a lawyer, but as she was waiting to join law school, she took up a reservations internship that resulted in a job at a five star hotel. For such a young mind, getting to meet celebrities was too exciting, even for law school.
But it didn’t last long. After three years in reservations, Florence entered yet another surprising field for a young woman – construction. This was her first attempt at business and she partnered with an older woman.
The money was good but two years in, it started becoming tedious and the night meetings with the engineers started getting to her. She quit. “My folks were elated. They thought that I was finally ready for law school. But I found my passion instead,” she says.
SCALING THE HURDLES
For two years, Kamaitha rallied both friends and strangers for money to buy pads. She also got more schools on board. The more she interacted with these girls, the more passionate she got. She also saw their other needs. She added panties onto her list but it wasn’t enough. The girls kept asking the most basic questions about menstruation. They needed information so she researched and created booklets which she gave out with the panties and pads.
“Eventually, I admitted to myself that this project wasn’t sustainable. I needed to earn a living for starters and people were tired of me knocking on their doors. I needed a solution that would earn me a living and still help the girls,” she says.
She knew that sanitary pads is not just a Kenyan problem so she started researching on how other countries are dealing with it. She found two solutions. She could make cheaper, re-usable pads for those girls living in areas with ample water supply. For those in dry areas, she could make non-reusable pads with the locally available materials. She immediately got to work.
“This was when I realised just how much menstruation is a taboo subject. The men I approached for funding didn’t want to talk about it and when they did, they wanted samples and sales figures to confirm that the idea was viable in the market. All I had was an idea.”
Still, she couldn’t give up. She visited Lang’ata Women’s Prison and managed to create an arrangement with the prison work programme. She trained the ladies on making the re-usable pads using organic cotton and some flannel. They get to earn some money and she gets a good product that she can sell cheaply to less fortunate school girls.
She already has the product in the market. A pack of eight re-usable sanitary pads which are meant to last one and a half years goes for Sh550. A pack of sanitary towels with panties and soap goes for Sh850. Her biggest clients have been NGO’s who buy these for the girls in those lower socioeconomic areas.
There has also been progress in the manufacture of the non-reusable pads. Last year, she won a grant from the United States African Development Foundation which she used to come up with a prototype which is built using banana fibre and bamboo. Her team is working to have the product in the market by March next year. “Eventually, I want to build a manufacturing plant,” she shares her dream.
KAMAITHA’S NUGGETS
She didn’t focus on the money, she focused on solving a problem. When she did, the money came.
During a start-up, she reckons that there will be many more reasons to give up than to continue so one needs to be overly passionate about the business they choose.
A mentor is important. She made the mistake of going in blindly. Reach out to someone who has done it before, she advises.
