Rafiki - where it all started

The Rafiki Program – where it all started

Most social entrepreneurs remember vividly how they come up with their solution to a social problem. Many can recall a moment when all made sense and fell into place. This happened as well with my former partner when he invented the Peepoo solution that resulted in the foundation of the for-profit company called Peepoople of which I am the co-founder. It was a moment I will also remember forever as it changed my career and life.

We were in Paris celebrating our two big birthdays that are set close in time. And it was in the middle of the night on my 40th day of birth that he woke me up and said “I have the solution”. His excited voice shook my eyes open and I listened even if I didn’t really understand what made him so happy. Neither did I grasp its enormous potential as we went shopping, walking, enjoying and living Paris the next day. His contionous and seemlingly endless talk about manure, toilets, shit, women and bags that day when I turned four and zero turned out to be the beginning of my new life as a social entrepreneur.

It is easy to feel like you are on a mission when you turn your attention to doing social good. It is like you have no choice. You have been given a key that can open doors and it becomes your duty to find ways to make copies so others can enter as well. As a secret-shy person this was in many ways a relief. Talking in front of thousands of people which I have done in the slum area where we used to work, be interviewed by international media or give lectures at important universites in different places around the world was no longer a worry. My work was not about me anymore but the difference it could make.

And it was while I was working with implementing this real solution to one of the worlds biggest problems – lack of sanitation – that my attention turned to yet another problem that affects underprivliged children and women. I was being interviewed by Voice of America in Peepoople Kenyas office situated in a corner of Kibera, this enourmous slum which is the size of Central Park in NY, situated beside a golf course only a few km away from the Nairobis city centre.?Kibera is one of Africas largest informal settlements. It is also famous for its many problems and having one NGO on every 10 inhabitant.

As we were ending the interview the journalist told me briefly about a story she was about to publish. She was upset. Just like some - but not all people are - when they know there are people suffering only meters away. The story was about young girls having sex for sanitary pads. She had been interviewing several persons in Nairobi. A city where about 60 % of the 4,3 million population live in 200 informal settlements that occupy only 6 % of the land.

She had concluded that about 30 – 50 % of girls from the ages of 9 – 18 years old living in Nairobis shanty towns were having sex for sanitary pads. I was shocked. When you work in this humanitarian line of work it is common to attend big conferences where one research after another is presented in line, beside each other and on top.?And even if I had been around working in this field for more than five years by that time I had never heard or read about this dire situation that seemed to face so many young girls (research has since proven that around 15 % of all Kenyan girls have transactional sex for pads).

What I had picked up from presentations when it came to girls, school and menstruation was that many ended up missing school days monthly due to lack of menstrual solutions. But this was so much worse. If a girl is having sex at such young age, she might fall pregnant, get HIV or other STI′s. And this could lead to total school drop out. And giving birth at young age is risky.?And a child giving birth to a child. It all sounded inhuman and so strange since it wasn’t spoken about or mentioned in reports.

As soon as my team of about 20 young men and women - who are all born and raised in Kibera - got back from the field that day I asked them if it was true. Their answer reflected the crazyiness of the situation. They told me “it is life”. Like they were speaking about one of natures laws that cant be avoided. And this was my moment, the day and the words that triggered me to develop a program and an organisation called The Cup Foundation that provides underprivliged girls with menstrual cups, educates girls and boys comprehensive sexuality education and human rights and also targets the community at large as well as teachers and parents specifically.

The idea was born in 2012 and it took me three years before all was put in place and we got started in Kibera slum with some of the team members I had worked with at Peepoople Kenya. Since then we have reached over 20 000 girls and 10 000 boys in different areas in Kenya, developed a manual and a trainer-to-trainer workshop and co-operated with other organisation as a way of scaling in South Sudan, Ivory Coast, Tanzania, Gambia and Kenya.