Jenipher Nyangah, Kakamega Days for Girls

Menstrual Hygiene Educator & Social Entrepreneur: Producing & Distributing Reusable Menstrual Pads for Girls in Kenya

Meet Jenipher Nyangah. Jenipher and I are both members of the Africa Permaculture Support Network, a Facebook group led by

Ted Schmidt

who I featured the other day. I didn’t know Jenipher well at all so this was a fantastic opportunity for me to get to know her! I’m so glad she agreed to participate in this Small Art, Big Art storytelling series featuring RainMakers & ChangeMakers.

Jenipher Nyangah, Director of Kakamega Days for Girls, Kakamega, Kenya

Jenipher is many things to many people! She is a 45-year old mother of two, a wife, social entrepreneur, teacher, craftsperson, community organizer and preacher living in Kakamega, Western Kenya. She says she is inspired by her upbgringing. “I came from a poor family and poor community. This motivates me to empower the people who live there by providing awareness and education, permaculture trainings, and responding to basic requests for support,” she says.

Jenipher is also a certified permaculture educator. She received her training in Uganda as well as Kenya with mentorship from well-known Austrialian permaculture activist and trainer, Morag Gable, of Our Permaculture Life.

In the thirty-second video below, Jenipher (who will appear on the right in blue/green dress) is teaching women how to use sacks for container gardening, a creative way to recycle and reuse existing resources to grow foods particularly when land is unavailable or limited. Gardening together is joyous; I encourage you to play the video with sound so you can enjoy the singing!

“DAYS FOR GIRLS” AFFILIATE

Jenipher is a ChangeMaker in many ways. There is one role that she plays that is immensely impactful to girls, women and the communities she works in.

She is the founder and operator of “Kakamega Days for Girls (DFG) Community Based Organization” which provides education and awareness on menstrual hygiene. They also are a social enterprise, producing and distributing reusable menstrual pads to girls and young women throughout the area. Kakamega DFG is an official affiliate of Days for Girls International.

For the last 6 years, Jenipher has been a Days for Girls Ambassador and affiliate, bringing awareness to the community through presentations at schools, churches, and other public forms to reduce the stigma and shame around menstruation. Her organization also produces and distributes reusable pads and supplies for menstrual hygiene.

Jenipher is using her community organizing, teaching, networking and creativce skills to address a widely known problem in many areas of the world: insufficient education, awareness, support and supplies for young girls and women to adequately care for their menstrual hygiene needs. “Period Poverty,” a shorthand term that refers to the inability to afford menstrual products, is a serious problem around the world that often keeps girls from attending school, even making them them a target of bullying and abuse.  

“Poor menstrual health and hygiene undercut fundamental rights for women, girls and people who menstruate, worsening social and economic inequalities. Insufficient resources to manage menstruation, as well as patterns of exclusion and shame, undermine human dignity,” according to UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency.

In the following video, Jenipher and her co-educators present to young girls at a school about menstrual hygiene, demostrating how to assemble and use the Days for Girls menstruation kits. Their demonstration is not only engaging but joyous with laughter and play (you have my permission to skip to minute 3:00). If you do nothing else today, skip to minute 3!

Days for Girls International is a worldwide nonprofit with a mission to “increase access to menstrual care and education by developing global partnerships, cultivating Social Enterprises, mobilizing volunteers and innovating sustainable solutions that shatter stigma and limitations for women and girls.” They have an office in Kenya and oeprate in many other locations all over the world including dozens of affiliates in the United States.

Locations of DFG affiliates and offices in Kenya

As a DFG Ambassador for the last 6 years, Kakamega DFG makes 100 DFG kits per week. The kits aren then distributed through churches, schools, and public forums.

Picture taken from Days for Girls International website of a DFG kit.

Jenipher operates her DFG affiliate sewing and assembling work within her home. She has 10 people who work under her, creating and distributing the pads.

Jenipher’s Work Needs A Boost

Currently, there is very little income generated from this work as she is serving marginalized communities such as students and young vulnerable women in her community who have no or limited ability to pay.

With all of her achievements to date, she sees a larger opportunity in the future where she can sustain her operations as well as further her mission. Her goal is to network as much as possible to raise funds to build an Enterprise Resource Center. This will help her move her operations out of the house, teach and employ more people to produce the pads, and scale up to both increase income generation as well as further her mission to education and distribute free menstrual kits.

Jenipher’s ChangeMaker

Jenipher points to Jeanne Hughes as her Mentor. “Jeanne is the one who taught me Days for Girls design and sewing the dispensable washable pads. After she taught me these skills, I joined Days for Girls International and received further trainings including how to make different types of reusable sanitary towels, management, advocacy, and networking. As a result of this training, I was awarded Days for Girls International’s Gold Standard Certificate which give me an opportunity to participate in Days for Girls activities worldwide.”

Where in the World is Jenipher?