PE-GO 247

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PE-GO 247

Abeokuta, NigeriaAbeokuta, Nigeria
Year Founded:
2015
Organization type: 
hybrid
Project Stage:
Idea
Budget: 
$1,000 - $10,000
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Project Summary
Elevator Pitch

Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.

PE-GO 247 offers young women the opportunity to make choices for their own health by improving access to affordable sanitary protection and feminine health education.

WHAT IF - Inspiration: Write one sentence that describes a way that your project dares to ask, "WHAT IF?"

What if we could create an easy win for girls?
About Project

Problem: What problem is this project trying to address?

Girls can miss 5 days of school a month due to inadequate sanitary protection, and 30% of girls in Nigeria drop out of school upon menarche. Due to a culture of silence, girls don't learn about proper hygiene. This contributes to the 44% of Nigerian women suffering from gynecological morbidity, including cervical cancer and RTIs. surely there is a need for new innovation to help solve this problem. Here comes PE-GO 247!

Solution: What is the proposed solution? Please be specific!

PEGO’s solution is to develop and advance appropriate, low-cost Menstrual Health Management options for low-resource settings. PEGO will work with schools to provide comprehensive, interactive feminine health education and affordable sanitary pads made from Bamboo material. We have learned that women lack information on menstruation or appropriate disposal of waste. Reusable MHM options (cloth pads and menstrual cups) while important, require a higher up-front cost, access to clean water and soap, and thorough drying—resources that are not always available in poor communities. Through integrating health education and affordable pads, we will foster customer demand and build networks of support and brand loyalty.
Impact: How does it Work

Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.

Our kickoff programs will provide promotional sanitary pads and educational materials to all participating girls. Partner schools/NGOs will provide the distribution channel for education and product. Eventually, girls will purchase the pads by receiving money from their mothers to do so. 80% of married Nigerian women have cash on-hand and significant purchasing power for household goods. PE-GO will focus on mother-daughter education to ensure that mothers see value in providing their daughters with sanitary protection.

Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Also describe the projected future impact for the coming years.

1)We are just starting out; however, this could be a major gamechanger by allowing over 5M adolescent girls to stay in school, thus delaying early marriage and pregnancy, these girls could add $200 billion to Nigeria’s GDP over their lifetimes. 2) One year of additional schooling for an adolescent girl corresponds to a 20% to 25% increase in her earning potential. 3) PEGO pads, made of fiber extracted from the stem of the bamboo plant, ensure that carbon emissions are minimized by: • Using agricultural byproducts productively, instead of discarding or burning plant fiber, which is the traditional method. 4) By incorporating families into the educational campaign, parents will see the value in “investing in girls,” thereby improving the value of a daughter in a culture that exhibits son preferences. • Reduce gynecological morbidity, which affects 35-40% of the female population.

Spread Strategies: Moving forward, what are the main strategies for scaling impact?

PEGO team will partner with NGOs, for profit outfit, schools, and clinics to identify community health workers or female mentors who will act as a PEGO "ambassador." In addition to selling pads, ambassadors will teach PEGO's feminine health curriculum and serve as female mentors, which is otherwise not presently available to them. By providing education on product packaging and through a culturally-sensitive health curriculum taught in schools, PEGO strives to reduce menstrual taboos in the long term.
Sustainability

Financial Sustainability Plan: What is this solution’s plan to ensure financial sustainability?

PEGO will operate as a hybrid outfit in order to better serve our customers. Being able to receive donations and at same time make money from sale of our product will drive the venture to sustainability. At the moment, we do not intend to charge government schools for our educational curriculum, but charging public schools for the cost of materials may allow us to more rapidly expand our impact.

Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?

The major competition for us comes from ALWAYS but their product is too expensive and sometimes don't reach marginalized women in the community. We also have re-usable pads, however, due to lack of water in some communities, many women will not use the product well. However, we are changing the game by bringing eco-friendly sanitary product and the needed menstrual health education to help women and girls lead a productive life.
Team

Founding Story

The 'Aha!' moment came from a brainstorming section we had at the Nigerian Health Innovation Marketplace workshop. From that moment of brainstorming, our team of 7 Doctors, 2 Business experts and 3 Engineers has started working on launching our product.
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