BanaPads
BanaPads are sourced and produced locally using readily available banana pseudostem wastes. The enterprise employs a franchise model led by young rural women to manufacture and distribute the pads. The finished products are marketed and sold across the region and profits go towards repaying micro-loans, salaries and eventually revenue. Using a door-to-door distribution model, BanaPads employs young female entrepreneurs known as “Champions", providing them with a complete start-up kit of inventory, training and marketing support.
- Bringing 3,300 girls aged 10 – 19 in rural areas back to school, thus increasing access to education.
- Offering training and job opportunities for young women in the production of sanitary pads, sales and collection activities.
- Creating alternative livelihoods for women to create businesses that benefit the entire community.
- 130,680 environmentally friendly sanitary pads have been produced.
- Reducing the 30 million tons of waste that goes to local landfill or garbage dumps by using banana pseudostem wastes and recycled materials.
- Improving the conservation of the natural world through community environmental education.
- 26,330 packs already sold to 4,380 girls, generating sales of USD 19,751.
- Two production centres will operate in the Mpigi District and Rakai, with a production capacity of 526,700 units per shift.
- 20 full-time jobs have been created by the social enterprise: 10 BanaPads Champions and 10 BanaPads production workers.
Partners
The Global Social Benefit Incubator, a programme developed by the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Santa Clara University, assists the enterprise in developing business plans and supporting capacity-building and fundraising.
The Social Entrepreneurship Forum a Swedish based “Social Entrepreneurship Outreach Accelerator” provides funding, in-kind support for capacity-building and connects the enterprise with impact investors.
The Global Fund For Children is a non-profit organisation based in Washington, DC, whose mission is to transform the lives of the world’s most vulnerable children by making small grants to innovative community-based organisations.
