#SHEReclaims Holiday Campaign has Launched!

Photo Credit: Perttu Saralampi
Art Design: Tash McCarroll

Today is the launch of our SHE RECLAIMS Holiday Campaign.

What does SHE RECLAIMS mean? It means much more than transforming leftover banana fiber into SHE LaunchPad.

It means that for the 3,000 Rwandan school girls who will receive our pads next year, the SHE LaunchPad will help them RECLAIM their education, productivity, health, and dignity.

Here are a few ways that you can trailblaze with us:

1. Investing today in our large-scale production pilot to deliver SHE LaunchPads to 3,000 Rwandan schoolgirls for the 2014 school year.

Become a SHE Pioneer

2. Introducing us to your friends, family, and your 7th grade teacher by sharing our SHE28 campaign video 

3. Tweeting your friends to take action. Here are our favorites:

• A 3-cent maxi-pad can change the world. I am helping girls reclaim their place in the classroom by joining @SHEnterprises #SHERECLAIMS (click to tweet)
• Investing in girls’ hygiene is KEY to reclaiming education, health, productivity & dignity #SHERECLAIMS (click to tweet)
• Girls should not miss out because they lack access to maxi-pads & menstrual education! Join me in helping #SHERECLAIM her right to dignity (click to tweet)
• I’m helping girls RECLAIM their full potential at school with access to maxi-pads @SHEnterprises. Together, #SHERECLAIM dignity for all (click to tweet)

4. Sharing our SHE RECLAIMS campaign images on Facebook:

Download here

Download here

Photo Credit and Design: Tash McCarroll Photography

Together, we can #SHERECLAIM dignity for all.

I'll be sharing more about the SHE Reclaims Holiday Campaign over the coming weeks. In the meantime, please join us this holiday season.

Stay tuned!

Elizabeth and the entire SHE team

Woot woot! Elizabeth Scharpf and Julian Kayibanda are 2013 Grinnell Prize Winners

The 2013 Grinnell Prize—a $100,000 award presented to young innovators in social justice - has been awarded to Chief Instigating Officer Elizabeth Scharpf and COO, Rwanda, Julian Kayibanda! If any of you are in Iowa next week from November 3 - 9, you will have a chance to meet Elizabeth and Julian during the week-long Grinnell Prize Symposium!

The Grinnell College Young Innovator for Social Justice Prize (also known as the Grinnell Prize) honors individuals under the age of 40 who have demonstrated leadership in their fields and who show creativity, commitment and extraordinary accomplishment in effecting positive social change. Each prize carries an award of $100,000, half to each winning individual (or individuals) and half to an organization committed to the winner’s area of social justice. For more information, including information go to www.grinnell.edu/grinnellprize.

Read the press release here:  http://prn.to/19N6cQs

Watch our Grinnell Prize Award video here:

Large-scale fluff production has begun!

Editor Note: Have you been dying to know what's been happening at our Ngoma production site? The wait is over! You can learn first-hand from Tyson Huffman, MacGyver-in-Residence, in our mini blog series in three parts. Read today's final post out of our mini series.  Don't forget to check out Part 1 and Part 2!

Come meet our production team: Gaudance, Ernestine, Sandrine, Louise, Christine, Nadine, and Daniel, along with Sylvere, our Business Development Officer (in red shirt).

As I write this, we are in full fluff production at our facility! We have hired eight employees and a manager and they are performing above expectations. We ran our machines all day for three days and produced copious amounts of high quality fluff that are ready to become LaunchPads.

Again, how did we get to the point where we are producing fluff? We have the tools, we have the people, and now we have the fluff. Even though we were still working out the kinks we produced a lot of fluff. As I write this I have been watching our manager, Daniel, work out some bugs the refiner is having. I’ve only had to help him once. He is currently teaching a team member to troubleshoot problems. As a restaurant manager, I found the two hardest things to find in a manager are someone who can quickly troubleshoot and train his colleagues. We have hitched our wagon to a star here with Daniel.

From banana fiber to fluff: our team and facility in action!

We will soon have more fluff than we know what to do with. Maybe we could manufacture pillows on the side? I have a few more ideas that I may be able to get done before I leave. They will speed up some of the process.

For all of our supporters, followers, and team members I have one last message: WE DID IT GUYS, THANKS TO YOU!

From Four Walls to Up and Running

Editor Note: Have you been dying to know what's been happening at our Ngoma production site? You can learn first-hand from Tyson Huffman, MacGyver-in-Residence, in our mini blog series in three parts. Today is Part 2 of 3. Missed Part 1? Read it here.

Sylvere, Julian, and Tyson at our Ngoma production facility

How did we get there? Sweat, determination, patience, and a little savvy thrown in for good measure. There were road bumps and unexpected issues but Marines know how to adapt and overcome. This is the mindset I brought to SHE.

We faced some initial challenges when I arrived to the production site. The first concrete we installed for the floor was unstable, like mud. We had to replace a motor. We then had to replace said motor because our electrician wired it incorrectly. Our initial water plan had to be revamped into a recycled water system. We’ve had to learn and improve the refiner. Our Fitz mill clogged every time we used it.

Newly installed water system

Some were easy and others were tough fixes. The water system was my favorite design of the project. We initially planned to let the water flow onto the floor and then outside into a 9 meter sump. (The guy dug this by hand. He must have the strongest back in the world.) It proved to be too much water and was just too messy. We dug a 1 meter deep sump at the base of the refiner, then built a grate over top of it and put a pump with a float inside. It required us to install another smaller tank to hold recycled water. I piped it in such a way that our team members never have to turn a valve or turn on a pump for it to work. Water rarely flows in Ngoma. This system ensures that we will never have to stop the process for lack of water.

Other problems proved to be easy fixes. We had no washers, so we used bottle tops. Our motor burned so we replaced it. We slightly altered the refiner to adapt it to fibers rather than wood pulp. When the Fitz Mill became clogged, we cut out two bars and it worked perfectly. Much of the equipment we use here does not exist so we manufactured it. We made steps and a platform for workers to stand on. A box was manufactured to catch pulp. The crates that the machine came in were used to make a large table for fiber cutting and a desk for our manager. We even used the nails.

We started this project with four walls and a plan. We have installed electricity, wired our machines, and placed them on concrete. In order to place the machines on concrete, we used 15 men and 2” x 4”. That was a feat. We have installed plumbing to the building, plumbed our machines, and installed two large tanks. A mission well accomplished!

Tune in tomorrow to learn about the successful replication of our fluff-making technology on an industrial-scale and meet our new SHE team members that work at our production facility!