Irise Reusable Sanitary Towel Training

A few weeks ago myself and several other KEP project workers teamed up with the people at Irise to learn how to make reusable sanitary towels. Irise is a student based organisation from Sheffield that was set up with the aim of 'contributing to the empowerment and education of girls and young women in East Africa so that they will have a voice that cannot be ignored and the ability to work towards solutions to the problems they face'.  This is primarily carried out through addressing the problem of menstrual hygiene management. Many young girls in lower income countries do not have access to proper menstruation resources and as a result face embarrassing situations at school and are more prone to infections. The knock-on effect of this can lead to girls falling behind in school and eventually dropping out, thus leading to less post education opportunities for women. Development and gender equality are inherently linked. By investing in opportunities for women you are directly aiding the development of a country.

Irise aim to tackle this issue through the simple method of making sanitary towels more accessible. They have been working in communities in Kenya to pass on the simple skill of fashioning reusable sanitary towels from readily accessible sanitary material. At our training session with Irise, we learned to make the reusable Mwezi sanitary towel and this is a skill I hope to pass on to the women in the community I will be staying with in Kenya. First things first though, I seriously need to work on my sewing skills. Those Kenyan women will put me to shame!