International Women’s Day

For the third year in a row, the Paper Fig Foundation honors International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month with a project that addresses the most basic of women’s needs. Without menstrual products, girls and women cannot attend school and work. If, on a monthly basis, they need to miss out on lessons or income, they are systematically set up to be left behind. We at the Paper Fig Foundation are doing something about it. Our PFF team has made over a thousand reusable menstrual pads and distributed them in schools in Uganda to make sure that girls never have to stay home because they can’t meet their basic hygienic needs. In addition to providing a basic health service, the PFF community is learning new skills and, perhaps even more importantly, sharing those skills with the wider community. This is one of the simplest and most affordable ways to make a life-changing difference in girls’ lives, and it opens the door for important conversations about women’s health, destigmatizing menstruation, and debunking dangerous myths.