Changing the world, one period at a time, right?
We are now working, along with Asociación de Productores Independientes de Banano (APIB) and a group of students from the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG), on researching the possibilities of creating a sanitary pad out of banana fibers.
Isn’t that cool?
Over the weekend, we went along with APIB and UVG to visit 2 communities in Tiquisate, Escuintla. The objective of the visit: Research.
The first community was San Francisco Madre Vieja. We split up into groups and targeted women and girls working at the “Tenderos”, which are small stores that sell chips, drinks, over the counter medicine, cellphone minutes and what not; and stay at home mothers. Most of the questions were in regards to their living conditions, ages, family members, access to potable water, their husband’s work and income. Then we went on to ask about sanitary pad’s costs and the frequency in which the women and girls bought them. One woman who owned one of the “Tenderos” had previously been robbed, so now she was taking a stand against big corporations and not selling their products, including sanitary pads. We also found out that this community, mostly burned their trash, very few families had trash cans.
The second community was in Primavera. Again, we split into groups and made the same kind of question to both groups targeted. This time, the answers were a little different. All the “Tenderos” sold sanitary pads, but at different prices. And, this community did have trash cans plus most of them had access to potable water. One thing that we loved to hear was that every child was required to finish up to 10th grade, which is higher than what we’ve heard in previous communities (around 5th grade).
In both communities, the men worked on the banana plantations that surrounded the area.
By the end of the day, we were all exhausted but thrilled with the results of our day’s research. This is just the start, and it will be a long journey from idea to prototype and it’s all worth it. Our goal is that this project will change the world, again, one period at a time.
