Sustainable Health Enterprises

In 2008, Elizabeth and three MIT students headed to Rwanda with a blender in their backpacks. What they came away with was a sustainable plan to tackle an urgent, global problem: girls’ and women’s lack of access to affordable menstrual pads. HOW DID WE DISCOVER THIS PROBLEM? As a Harvard graduate student, Elizabeth learned of this phenomenon among factory workers in Mozambique while working at the World Bank. According to one factory owner, 20% of her employees were missing work on regularly, up to 30 days a year, because of menstruation.The reason: pads cost more than a day’s wages.