About Us
Project Somesha supports the development of young girls in Kenya to independently decide their future through mentorship and provision of feminine hygiene products by incorporating, art, role play and story telling to drive conversation around menstrual health management (MHM).
In many communities in Kenya, period talk is governed by loud silence. It is still seen as a taboo to discuss menstruation and menstrual health management. Project Somesha endeavours to work with like minded community organisations to facilitate the access of information around MHM and distribution of menstrual products. We acknowledge the fact that in order to drive conversations around MHM, we have to go beyond engaging menstruators to actively engaging non-menstruators to be part of the discussion.
Meet The Team
The Mission
To ensure that no day of school is missed due to lack of menstrual products.
Why are we doing this?
The ability for women and girls to manage menstruation freely, without stigma, hygienically and with dignity directly ties to human rights. We would like to see more girls and women take up space in different fields of interest with high self esteem, pride and dignity without stigma and discrimination and to be able to access equal opportunities in education, health and employment.
Some of Project Somesha’s wider visions:
Enabling learning is one of our core passions at Project Somesha. We would like to connect young girls who are excelling in schools with scholarship opportunities in Kenya, other countries in Africa, Europe or United States, giving them direction and advise on what they can do right to tap on the numerous opportunities available.
We would like to see young girls grow to be ladies who are inquisitive, that challenge the status quo and that are able to express their opinions well.
Project Somesha hosts planned and spontaneous speaking sessions, to discuss diverse topics that involve girls and women, drawing from different backgrounds. Both menstruators and non-menstruators are welcomed to our sessions.
Did you know?
65% of women and girls in Kenya cannot afford sanitary pads (Afri-can, 2015)
In western Kenya, 10% of the young adolescent girls admitted to transactional sex for pads (Phillips-Howard et al., 2015)
Young girls who do not have access to proper information and access to menstrual health products, miss around 60-84 school going days per year in Kenya.
54% of Kenyan girls face challenges with access to to MHM products, with 22% of school-going girls indicating that they purchased their own sanitary products. This raises troubling questions of how they are able to afford these products. (MHM policy by Ministry of Health 2019-2030)
Breaking the silence around menstruation is the key to a future situation where there is period equity, where every woman in every pandemic or not, has the ability to hygienically and sustainably manage her periods
Sustainable menstruation: Let’s make the Earth a greener, better and safer place, one red revolution at a time!
The present and the future of menstruation can now be sustainable. Thousands of tons of disposable sanitary waste is generated every month all over the world.
Environmental impact caused by sanitary waste is one of the significant topics in discussions today. A plastic, industrially manufactured, disposable sanitary pad requires about 500-800years to decompose.
Project Somesha advocates for the transition from the use of disposable pads to adoption of environmentally friendly products like menstrual cups, discs and washable sanitary pads.
The environmental benefits of these products create a significant, applaudable and positive impact on the planet, where every woman’s contribution to this transition from disposable to sustainable menstrual products matters.
Experiences
Upcoming Events
Our Partners
If you are an organization committed to enhancing the health and wellness of girls and women, we would love to collaborate with you!
