Coffee dates brew pads project

At first JANE MBUGUA, 25, used her pocket money to buy sanitary towels for five poor girls. This simple gesture gave birth to Eve Dreams touching 200 girls, writes SHIRLEY GENGA

You have an interesting project with your girlfriends. Kindly fill us in.

Together with a group of girlfriends, I run a project called Eve Dreams that empowers and mentors young girls. We also provide sanitary towels to the young girls in Maasailand and Kibera slums.

What inspired you to start the project?

In my final year in campus, I did a project on challenges facing poor Masaai girls. During my research, I found out that the girls use pieces of mattress, old rags or they squat in a hole when they are on their menstrual periods.

I also learnt about the hardships the Maasai girls face like female genital mutilation and I was moved to action. After the research I vowed to do something — however small — to help. I started by buying sanitary towels to five girls every month.

How did you fund the project?

At first, I did not have money of my own so my mum connected me with somebody who imports sanitary towels from China.

The supplier would sell them to me at an affordable price. The guy was even kind enough and agreed to repack the pads into 20 pieces per packet instead of the usual nine. This way the girls could use one packet a month.

How did you bring your girlfriends on board?

It was simple. Just over coffee during our usual girl talk. Initially, my goal was to give pads to 30 girls for a whole year.

Because I did not have the money to make this a reality, I discussed it with my nine girlfriends and we all agreed that every time we went out for dinner or coffee we would all give Sh100 for every drink or meal we bought. This worked quite well because that time most of us were party animals.

In a week we would make enough money to purchase several cartons of sanitary towels.

How big has the project grown since then?

The project is now like a movement and even our male friends support it. There was a time we raised so much money in seven months we were able to buy more than 1,000 cartons of sanitary towels.

How does the project work?

Every three months we take the pads to girls in Kibera and Kajiado and we plan to spread our wings to North Eastern Province. We are also planning to introduce recycled pads.

What would you tell young girls who have a passion like yours but have no funds?

To touch the life of another person you do not need a lot of money, as long as you have a passion and goal.

I believe if a few people come together with a common goal, anything is possible.

My focus is not something flamboyant that attracts big sponsors, but something simple and from the heart.

I hear post-election violence affected your life. Tell us more…

Yes it did. I was a journalist then and I got to see the impact of the violence firsthand.

I could not handle the pain and suffering I saw and so I quit my job. I felt like I was not doing enough to reach out to the people on the ground, especially the women and children who were hurting.

I wanted a job that was directly involved in changing the lives of people who were suffering as opposed to just reporting on their plight.

After I quit, a friend told me about a vacancy at Sarakasi Trust. Sarakasi has social awareness programmes that allow the artistes to be involved with their communities. I got a job as an assistant project officer. I was excited because I was longing to work with grass root communities.

How does the job enable you to connect with the community?

We have a one-year peace initiative called Amani Lazima funded by the Norwegian Embassy. The project was born as a result of the post-election violence so it was like an answer to my prayers. It was a reconciliation platform that included clean-ups, workshops, self-help projects and concerts.

The project ran for 12 months and each month we visited different areas affected by the violence. I learnt so much and got to meet people from all over Kenya. When the project ended, I got a job as a communication and marketing officer at the same company.

Tell us about your background?

I come from a Christian family where both mum and dad are church leaders. I am the only girl among four brothers so growing up I was a tomboy.

I have a degree in Communication and Public Relations from Daystar University.

Other than giving pads to the girls, do you also mentor them?

Yes we do. When we started Eve Dream, our intention was to provide pads and give the girls tips on how to stay clean during that time of the month. We also explained to them the changes that come with growing up.

But with time we are realising they need someone to talk to them about early marriage, value of education and female genital mutilation. We now we offer mentorship talks.

How do you balance between your job at Sarakasi Trust and the Eves Dream project?

Juggling the two is not easy since my job entails a lot of planning, meetings and report writing but I always try to make time for Eves Dream because it is equally important to me.

The best part is that to achieve the Eves Dream we have established a network so that whenever we are unable to travel to Masaailand to distribute the pads, we just send the driver to drop them and they always arrive safely.

Good planning and great support from friends and family has also made it easy for me.

Where do you see the Eve Dreams project in five years?

We will be more organised with fully equipped offices — at least three headquarters in East Africa.

It will be a foundation with full time employees especially the girls whose lives we have already touched.

I would love to expand throughout East Africa because this is not a Kenyan problem only, but a continental one.

I hope we will also have our own trucks to use in distribution of the pads throughout East Africa and that we will produce our own sanitary towels thus creating employment.

Finally, I hope we will be able to offer sponsorship to the best girls in the schools we target in order to help them realise their dreams.