Our Mission

Upendo Women’s Foundation is a grassroots 501(c)(3) non-profit creating a more dignified, humane and sustainable world for girls through advocacy, reproductive health awareness, education and sustainable hygiene solutions because no girl should go without. Women and girls discover their potential and self-value, are equal participants and agents of social change and are given opportunities to thrive, grow and contribute to their community’s betterment while ensuring quality sustainable feminine hygiene.

Our Vision

Every girl and woman in the world with ready feasible access to quality sustainable hygiene & health education.

Our Plan – Be the Voice

Every girl in the world deserves education, safety, and dignity. We further this goal by helping girls who would otherwise go without to have access to quality sustainable feminine hygiene solutions and awareness. We accomplish this through both direct distribution with many nonprofits, by raising awareness, by helping other organizations start their own programs and importantly, by helping impoverished communities start their own programs to supply kits and training. It’s working!

Action Plan: Create an Image with the following:

• Upendo Women’s Foundation
• Establish International and National Volunteers, Chapters and Clubs
• Volunteer Chapters Sew Kits
• Send Kits with Local NGO’s or service organization
• Kits distributed by Ambassadors or NGO’s
• Ambassadors work with communities and schools
• Work with local sewing cooperatives to produce kits
• Establish a National Day for Distribution
• Collect Stats to present to our donors

Why is it important?

When she is part of UWF programs, she has a ready monthly sanitary solutionand new knowledge of her own worth–

• She is more likely to stay in school * She has more confidence
• She has more health knowledge * She will speak up for herself & others
• Her future income will be greater and so will her country’s GNP
• She will contribute to her community
• Her children and peers are more likely to do so as well.

Help a girl and you help every member of her family (boys too!), her community and her nation..

• Girls who have sanitary hygiene are more confident in school and more likely to graduate.
• For every year of education a girl receives, her future income increases
• When a girl has 7 or more years of education, she marries 4 years later and has 2.2 fewer children.
• To name only a few benefits.

What happens?

What if not having feminine supplies kept you isolated during menstruation? No study for UPENDO. No income for UPENDO. No access to hygiene … for UPENDO. It happens worldwide to women in impoverished communities. They miss up to 8 months of school in 3 years to this issue. Girls use leaves, mattress stuffing, newspaper, corn husks, rocks, the list goes on … all to try to stay in school. These often lead to painful infection. Worse, girls are often exploited in exchange for hygiene to keep them in school (see one girl telling her story here). This also affects early marriage, as menstruating girls who are not in school are considered “eligible” regardless of age. It turns out this issue is one of the keys to social change. It’s hard to imagine, but true all over the world.

If you have to choose between feeding your children or providing sanitary supplies, which would you choose? The answer is clear. Where do you dispose of soiled pads when there is no trash service? Littered pads only add to the stigma girls can face. A quality answer that she can count on month after month that is comfortable and effective AND discrete gives her back days of possibility, safety, and dignity.