“After traveling to Tanzania a few times beginning in 2021, I started to be approached by local leaders regarding a prominent issue facing many women and teenage girls. The dropout rate of high school girls is more than half and getting worse as time goes on. It was explained to me that the reasons for this are twofold. One is because once a girl starts her period, she doesn’t have the means to deal with the situation, so she drops out. She is unable to afford disposable products and in most cases; she isn’t even able to afford pieces of cloth. This creates a situation where she may feel pressured to rely on an older man who offers to provide these items in exchange for certain attention, or she may resort to using unsafe alternatives like old pieces of fabric or mattresses, which can lead to serious health issues. Both alternatives cause the girl to drop out of school.  The second major issue is lack of education on her reproductive health. Most girls feel the subject of her period is too Taboo to discuss with anyone or she has been told bad information from an older girl that also did not receive proper education. Some of the girls that I have talked to have confided in me that they didn’t know what was happening to them when they started bleeding and thought they had become sick or injured in some way. They kept this a secret from their family members as they didn’t want to cause financial stress by needing to go to the doctor. Others who did find the courage to ask their mothers what to do were just told to deal with it on their own, which leads to the alternatives listed above. So, after much thought and research, I decided to start an education   program for women and girls in regards not only to their reproductive health, but also to quell the stigma associated with having a period. So, in 2023, More Precious Than Pearls was born! Since that time, I have put together a team in Tanzania that helps put together education events all over the region for not only women and girls but also for men, boys and community leaders. We are trying to change the way everyone feels about and deals with this subject through education and ending the stigma. To combat the issue of not being able to afford sanitary products, I found a company in Dar Es Salaam that sells packages of washable pads for wholesale prices to large NGOs like the Red Cross and UNISEF. These pads have also been approved as safe, hypoallergenic and effective by these large companies. With the help of donors, I was able to offer a package of these pads to the girls that came to our office for education. I have been able to offer our education program to over 5000 people so far! Then in 2024, after teaming up with OMW, they have added funds to this cause, and we are now set to take our education to locations in Uganda later this year!!”

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