Loving Humanity provides women and girls living in poverty across the world with access to period pads. We focus on access to sanitary products because we believe that it is a key lever to keeping girls in education for longer and enabling women to work and participate in daily life with dignity.

The work that we do comes under the banner of Menstrual Health Management – which encompasses not only lack of access to adequate sanitary products like period pads, but also lack of access to private toilet facilities, hygienic disposal and clean water to ensure women and girls can have their periods without risk of infection or worse, period shaming and sexual abuse.

Kenya

In May 2019 with in-country partners, we opened our first period pad micro-factory in Kibera, one of Nairobi’s largest slums. Over 1,000 schoolgirls are now receiving pads for free, resulting in less infections, a dramatic drop in school absenteeism and a restoration of their dignity – they no longer have to cut up their mattresses to cope!

We are partnered with WASH Alliance Kenya and supported by the Ministry of Health.  Having visited Kibera in September 2019, we realised that to enable in-country partners to open new micro-factories with ease we needed to set up a hub in Nairobi.  From this central warehouse we will be able to share learnings and best practice, support each unit with raw materials and spares and have an in-country team ready to assist whenever necessary.

Iraq

In November 2019 we donated a period pad micro-factory and one year’s supply of raw material to Oxfam Iraq. Together we will be setting up a micro-factory in Jeddah 5 camp which is currently home to 5,000 internally displaced people, mostly women and children.  There is no distribution of pads.  

Funding for this work would enable us to offer the necessary on-going support to Oxfam and ultimately to the Iraqi women as they take ownership of it in early 2021.

Jordan

Our first washable nappy factory opened in December 2016 in Zaatari refugee camp just 5 miles south of the Syrian border.  The United Nations High Commission for Refugees told us of the desperate situation of  thousands of bedwetting children due to the  trauma of war.  Coupled with that,  neither  the disabled nor the elderly were being given nappies. 

Having imported all the necessary materials from Turkey, we employed 30 of the most vulnerable women in the camp to teach how to manufacture beautiful washable nappies.

Due to difficulties with distribution,  we relocated to the compound of a church in Amman where we now employ 8 Iraqis who fled from ISIS in Mosul. The nappies are distributed to Jordan’s refugee community and others desperately in need, through churches and NGOs and we supply Amman’s Mother Teresa homes.   

In 2019 we made and distributed over 4,000 nappies to vulnerable people.  We now have the potential to increase our distribution network working with UNICEF, Mercycorps and IOCC and we have the capacity to make and distribute up to 13,000 annually. If we can increase the funding for this work we will be able to increase the number of working days from 2 to 5 and buy the necessary flannel material.  This will enable us to help thousands more desperate people.