#BellaNaijaWCW Folasade Bamisaye is Promoting Menstrual Hygiene in Underserved Communities with My Period Kit

#BellaNaijaWCW this week Folasade Bamisaye is passionate about empowerment of women and girls, and that’s evident in the impact she’s made in about a decade.

Folasade started impacting her community in 2009, volunteering for organisations working on issues of women and young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Women and girls in under-served areas around Nigeria are faced with huge challenge of coping with their menstrual period hygienically. Then there is the issue of shame and embarrassment.

Folasade decided to change this. She founded My Period Kit, to provide women and girls with a menstrual hygiene kit which includes sanitary pads, tissue wipes, pantyliners, and disposable, bags an affordable cost, with the goal of keeping young girls in school.

My Period Kit partners with individuals, organisations government agencies, donors, and CBOs to improve menstrual hygiene and well-being of young girls and women of reproductive age and to increase access to an affordable and healthy transition into womanhood.

For women and girls with limited access to running water, My Period Kit developed a sustainable, disposable sanitary pad made from banana and plantain stem fibre called “GreenPads.”

Folasade’s work also involves debunking the myth that menstruation is a taboo or a dirty process.

Folasade is a 2017 Mandela Washington Fellow. In 2018, she was selected as a finalist to represent Nigeria in the $1 million global startup competition, Chivas Venture.

She’s a Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist with the Prime Health Response Initiative and was recently announced as a 2019 Obama Foundation Leaders: Africa participant.

She holds a Bachelor of Education degree from University of Ibadan, and a masters degree in Counsellor Education/School Counselling from the University of Ilorin.