Fighting period poverty: Here’s how Exeter woman is making a difference in Kenya

EXETER — A local Pilates instructor recently embarked on a journey to Kenya, Africa, with a suitcase filled with more than 1,500 pairs of girls underwear.

Lindsey Burns, of Club Pilates in Portsmouth, said the underwear was included in kits to combat period poverty in rural communities of Kenya. Period poverty refers to a lack of access to menstrual products, sanitation facilities, and adequate education.

In addition to conducting core-burning, intense workouts, Burns is a board member at Kenya Connect, a nonprofit that seeks to “engage and empower students and teachers in rural Kenya to succeed in the 21st century.”

The Exeter resident, along with other Kenya Connect members, made the trip to Wamunyu, Kenya, to distribute the kits to the Wakela Secondary School to help educate young girls about menstrual health and hygiene.

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Period poverty is real in Kenya

The initiative started in 2017, when Kenya Connect leaders surveyed two of their partner schools and found 85% of the Kenyan girls were missing three to five days of school per month due to a lack of sanitary products for their periods, according to Sharon Runge, executive director of Kenya Connect.

About 35% of the population of Kenya lives under the international poverty line of $1.90 a day, according to World Bank data from 2019, and sanitary products are hard to come by.

“We knew we needed to develop a solution,” Runge said.

Runge said in response they developed Wings Poa Reusable Sanitary Pad Kits, otherwise referred to as “cool wings,” as “poa” means cool in Swahili.

Each kit is made by local women in Kenya and comes in a drawstring pouch and includes 10 liners, two shields that hold the liners and Velcro onto the underwear as a winged pad normally would, and a pair of underwear, many of which were donated through Burns.

When distributing the kits, Kenya Connect’s staff provides menstrual health and hygiene information and answers questions from the girls.

“It’s like a win-win program all the way around,” Runge said. “It gets girls the product, it’s income generation for women and it’s keeping pads out of the landfill or just scattered around the landscape.”

After using the kits for three months, Runge said, only 5% of the girls were missing school when they had their periods.

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Club Pilates panty drive nets 3,000 pairs

This was Burns’ second volunteer trip with Kenya Connect. She said her first trip, in October 2019, was a “remarkable experience” that led her to join the Kenya Connect board.

“I just felt so connected to the experience,” Burns said. “I felt the work that Kenya Connect is doing is life-changing for students, their families and the community.”

At Club Pilates in Portsmouth, Burns set up a “panty drive” with donation bins for members to bring in girls' underwear.

Burns had an initial goal to collect 200 to 300 pairs of underwear before their February visit.

“Initially I was hoping to gather 1,000 pairs, but we quickly surpassed that goal and we wound up collecting over 3,000,” said Burns.

Throughout the drive, Burns said, she made announcements after all of her classes and shared with members how girls in Kenya were missing school because of a lack of sanitary products.

The majority of those who attend classes are women, and the discomfort of getting a period without a sanitary product available resonated with them, Burns said.

“The barriers to education are very difficult in these rural communities,” she said. “And to think that not having sanitary kits is a real barrier for girls just really struck a chord with so many of these women.”

While a decent amount of the donated underwear came from Club Pilates members, Burns also received many donations from family and friends to help her get to 3,110.

The number was so large Burns and Kenya Connect members only brought half of them for the February volunteer trip.

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Another trip to Kenya planned in June

Burns said her most recent volunteer trip was an experience she’ll never forget.

“It was this amazing connection,” she said. “I mean, there were some language barriers, there were generations, we're from different continents. And yet, for those few moments, we were all women, older and younger, who have a shared experience of sanitary products.”

Burns said another trip to deliver the other half of the panties collected will take place in June. Students and faculty from the University of New Hampshire’s nursing and social work programs will be making the trip to Kenya.

Kenya Connect is a nonprofit to strengthen education in rural Machakos county by breaking down barriers to education and providing innovative teacher professional development and empowerment and enrichment programs for students, teachers, and parents at 63 partner public primary and secondary schools.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Exeter woman fights 'period poverty' with nonprofit Kenya Connect