ComfyGirl Sanitary Pad Project - Africa

About twenty percent of girls and young women miss school worldwide due to a lack of sanitary products and misinformation about their menstrual hygiene (Lusk-Stover et al., 2016).

UNESCO reports that approximately one in ten girls in Sub-Saharan Africa are absent from school during their menstrual cycle.

The CGSPP intervention helps lessen the number of girls and young women missing school or suffering due to a lack of sanitary pads especially in Africa. The program’s objective is to produce and distribute reusable sanitary pads to girls, mainly in rural areas who are poverty struck and cannot afford to buy them. Similarly. The project seeks to influence, facilitate and attract female entrepreneurs producing reusable sanitary in Africa to come and, in unison, help reduce the number of girls being absent in school due to lack of sanitary pads. While utilizing funds from various international organizations, the project also wishes to offer training and awareness to participating individuals, who will, in turn, re-disseminated the information to others, and as a result, reach out to more girls in Africa.

The project’s mission is to facilitate sanitary pads and awareness about menstrual hygiene to schoolgirls who are poverty struck. The project’s provision of reusable pads contributes to achieving various sustainable development goals (SDGs). For instance, the project will foster the achievement of quality education (SDG4), hygiene and sanitation and clean water (SDG6), and gender equality (SDG5) (Lusk-Stover et al., 2016). Subsequently, reusable sanitary pads are a sustainable approach to ensuring girls manage their menstrual cycle because they can use them for an extended period before they wear out. Lastly, the project wishes to ease the availability and accessibility of period products such as sanitary pads by providing affordable pads to girls and rural communities.

Organizing Team

Young Global Leaders Network DRC, Somaliland, Kenya and Nigeria Team

Emmanuel Addo
Founder

Emmanuel Addo is a Ghanaian-born leadership strategist, youth development advocate, and the visionary founder of the Young Global Leaders Network. A former student activist at the University of Ghana, he holds an MBA from Anglia Ruskin University, a Postgraduate Diploma in Strategic Management from the UK, and is completing a Doctor of Business Administration at Manipal GlobalNxt University in Malaysia.

Currently a Manager at one of the UK’s leading universities, Emmanuel also holds certificates from the University of Oxford and the Malta Leadership Institute. Under his leadership, YGLN has grown to over 10,000 members across Africa, with registered branches in nine countries and presence in 15 others. He is also the founder and Chief Convener of the Young African Leaders Summit, and has supported over 370 young entrepreneurs and mentored more than 2,000 African youths.

Emmanuel’s work continues to impact policy, leadership, and entrepreneurship across Africa and beyond.