SCAN4PADS

The project seeks to solve period poverty (inaccessible and unaffordable menstrual health products) in the digital era.

The focus is on girls whose transition rate to high school has been significantly lower as compared to their male counterparts. Survey from the Kenyan Ministry of Education has shown that a total of 70% of girls report to miss 1 to 3 days of primary school per month. These worrying figures translate to a loss of 8 to 24 school days per year. This represents 10% of girls’ school attendance missed due to lack of sanitary products and the use of unhygienic products that may lead to susceptible reproductive tract infections – all affecting health outcomes.

In the Kenyan Maasai community, girls’ ability to manage their menstruation has been influenced by broader cultural inequities and have been hindered by the presence of discriminatory social norms such as stigmatization, sanction, taboos associated with menses, and the retrogressive practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). These cultural inequities are further fuelled by inadequate menstrual management resources, poverty, and inaccessibility due to topography. These often manifest across different fronts leading to a sad state of affairs in which low income community residents do not prioritize purchasing pads over what might be ignorantly termed as more important (such as food items).

In addition, the cost comes off as sharply unaffordable, while shops come far and wide apart making it difficult to purchase menstrual management materials. Girls end up using feathers, rags and sitting on sand in order to manage their menses. Unhygienic sanitation products may make girls susceptible to reproductive tract infections. Cross-sectional surveys and news outlets have revealed that sanitary towels intended for free distribution to school girls end up being plundered and repackaged for selling. 

It therefore follows that the aforementioned issues highlight an underlying divide in availing hygienic menstrual health management resources in rural Narok, Kenya, necessitating the need for solutions to alleviate them.

Our solution follows a technology for good model to ensure the achievement of our core 3As; Affordability, Accessibility and Availability of sanitary products that incorporates  a user friendly mobile application that is Simple Transparent and Scalable.This application falls under an initiative known as Maisumata which in the native Maasai language means “Let us study'' that focuses on ensuring transformative experiences for young learners in Narok Kenya.

Scan4Pads, which is powered by Android, acts as a fully-fledged Information system that allows the monitoring and generation of reports of the monthly distribution of sanitary towels which incorporates QR code technology, AI, Short Message Service (SMS) in addition to USSD and GSM protocols, mobile payment and an embedded E-wallet.It uses QR code to not just store but also print details of the registered young girls on a scannable card (Identification Card size) which is offered to them for easy identification before being supplied with sanitary towels (pads). The system has an in-built E wallet feature attached to a girl's profile. Through a mobile money API integration, the E-wallet is periodically topped-up using M-PESA, a mobile phone based money transfer service widely used in Kenya. The system will require the guardian or parent to top up 30% (between KES 15- KES 20 or $0.15 - $0.2) of the total amount of a pad into the girl’s E-wallet account while the rest of the cost (70%) is footed by the Maisumata Initiative.

A girl should then present her QR code printed card to the administrator (a school teacher) for scanning in order to be issued with a sanitary towel. The process is iterative, as informed by the emergence of a need. 

Prioritizing girls’ education in emergency contexts has never been more urgent than in the current digital era. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it a myriad of unprecedented disruptions to education systems and compounded already existing gender inequalities in education, particularly for marginalized girls. Even before the pandemic, girls were more likely to be out of school than boys in emergency contexts. Survey from the Kenyan Ministry of Education has shown that a total of 70% of girls report to miss 1-3 days of primary school per month 65% of them cannot afford sanitary towels and 50% of them do not associate it to pregnancy. This has a direct negative impact on their efforts to transition to higher classes and tertiary institutions. This highlights a need to arrest the crisis as a matter of necessity. FAWCO, a UN Advocacy institution, lists a number of best practice interventions that could salvage the plight for girls' education in emergencies: Making schools affordable; Helping girls overcome health barriers; Reducing the time and distance to get to school; Making schools more girl-friendly; Improving school quality; Increasing community engagement; and Sustaining girls’ education during emergencies.

While paying a lot of respect to the aforementioned interventions; Helping girls overcome health barriers (by providing them with menstrual health management tools and WASH facilities) and providing girl friendly spaces (that would shelter them from violence, including sexual and gender-based violence) are more realistic as they have a holistic impact on girls’ education. Safe spaces in this context could also include but not limited to advocating to have more female teachers. This has the underappreciated potential of girls confiding in “one of their own” without a lot of fear.

The development of a digital mobile solution; Scan4Pads - will  foster a digital ecosystem and introduce a one of its kind innovation in Narok County, geared towards proper management and distribution of sanitary towels. The mobile solution will not only supply the sanitary towels to these girls at a subsidized rate, it also seeks to evoke a sense of responsibility/ ownership by the girls, caregivers, and the entire community at large by breaking age-old barriers that have stood in the way of this pertinent issue being talked about openly and being given priority. We’d like to think of it as a simplified mobile shop for sanitary towels, making it accessible and affordable to the learners in the local schools and community in rural Narok, Kenya.

Having grown up in Siyapei- a remote ASAL(Arid Semi Arid Lands') community in Rural Narok-Kenya, our founder- Nabuyuni Sankan, clamoured for a better lifestyle especially for girls in her community. It was painful to watch young girls being victimized for experiencing their menses- a natural occurrence. What was worse? the fact that no one seemed to care enough to help them have their periods in a dignified and welcoming environment. They'd use sand and torn clothes just to take care of it, have sexual transactions to receive knickers and sanitary towels from motorcycle riders and early marriages, upon their menarche (the first occurrence of the menstrual blood)  month in month out. The team had to start by creating communal awareness through the Maisumata initiative on delivering a transformative experience to young learners through formal education and menstrual health awareness. Together, as a team, we approached community outreach agencies and local sanitary towel manufacturers to try to build a consistent supply of sanitary towels. 

After unsustainable stances of manual sanitary towels distribution at Siyapei Primary School and other local schools, there was an urgent need to facilitate, monitor, distribute, and generally manage the process of disbursement of the sanitary towels to the girls. Nabuyuni birthed the idea of a transparent and scalable digital solution, Scan4Pads, that would allow the management and distribution of sanitary towels at a subsidized rate. In our pilot deployment of the solution, we have noted considerable improvements in the girls' menstrual health, general drive to attend and perform well at school, and a kind of impressive community uptake that has seen parents and caregivers buy more into this transformative solution. Through our mobilizers (who are also part of the team), we have had a far reaching impact that has seen age-old sympathizers of backward practices, such as FGM and early marriages, become champions of and embrace new progressive norms that create awareness and an emancipatory narrative. 

Collectively, as a team, we have been working towards the realization of 'Dupoto O'losho', which means 'a community's prosperity'. We strongly believe that the system will ensure that a girl will have good health uninterrupted school time, translating into improved transition rates to subsequent classes, and empower them for a better future. We are well aware that our community is also constitutive of other groups of people. In this regard, we have also been running a toys and book drive and a parallel feeding program for the younger kids (those in elementary and lower grades, between ages 3-9). The nutritional cup of porridge is a targeted social safety net that provides benefits both educational as well as health related ones to younger children thus causing a rise in their enrolment rates, a reduction in cases of absenteeism and improving the food security situation at the household level. 

As we forge on with our community empowerment advocacy, we remain very appreciative of the international acclaims Maisumata has garnered in the space of two years. It is such recognitions that motivate and propel us into wanting to steer ahead the vision of Maisumata: To drive an empowerment, encouragement, and development of skills narrative by way of mentorship and inculcating a sense of ownership, imparting menstrual health and hygiene knowledge, and digital literacy skills. 

Providing good health and well-being for girls and women and ensuring that they have access to life-saving and life-enhancing skills and information should be a priority. This also goes a long way in helping and preparing them to make a positive contribution to the reconstruction of their communities and society in the future. Having grown up in Rural Narok and acquired a formal education within the walls of Siyapei Primary, a local public school, our founder has become privy to and gotten exposed to the recurring girl’s period poverty situation in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs).  

The plight of young suffering Maasai girls got us on the long road to seeking solutions that would transcend health and education interventions, but rather have a community socio-economic transformation. We Registered the Maisumata Initiative as a Community-Based Organization that would drive a collective positive prosperity narrative in Narok, Kenya. Despite being short handed in terms of human and financial resources, at the early stages after the conception of the Maisumata Initiative and before its formal registration, the programme had manually supplied sanitary towels to girls in Siyapei Primary School through its Scan4Pads project. 

Our aim? To not only positively impact young learners in the low-income informal settlements of rural Narok, but to also quash age old barriers to a girl's prosperity; such as limiting social norms, stigma, unequal education opportunities and access to menstrual health awareness. 

Riding on the MIT SOLVE appreciation of the vision to have change, a team and a network of believers in digital transformation, we strongly believe that our journey of Becoming Solvers has led us to a tribe of like-minded leaders in the global community. We hope to gain access, mentorship, coaching, talent, and strategic advice from experts, as well as the Solve and MIT networks, to avert the narrative of period poverty.

Digital integration of a communal solution at grassroot level, a first of its kind user-friendly technology targeting underserved communities The mobile application’s approach to resolving the digital divide is a three-fold across: Stage 1- Economic Divide, Stage 2 - Usability Divide, and Empowerment Divide.

Stage 1: Economic Divide

In its simplest form, the digital divide is manifested in the fact that some people can't afford to buy a smartphone. Heavily employing mobile application development technologies, the solution has also leveraged on the USSD technology to accommodate parents and caregivers who own Symbian phones. The USSD technology implies that services information can still be communicated and received in real time. In addition, one does not necessarily have to install the app, beneficiaries use QR Code printed cards to access the services and only administrative personnel need to have the app for purposes of scanning the cards and disseminating pads.

Stage 2: Usability Divide

User friendliness- The user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design of the app is simple, intuitive, easy to use, reliable, well customized and easy to understand. The QR code Scanner integration improves the user experience.

Functional features such as easy and seamless generation of reports for all users makes planning, management, and distribution of pads easier.

A chatbot known as Nandoiye has been created to streamline interactions and raise menstrual health awareness. The futuristic design of the bot is one that will include a native Maasai language.

Stage 3: Empowerment Divide

Scan4Pads transcends its original purpose of bringing menstrual health management products closer to the local community, creating cross-sectional relationships through awareness training.

Payment Gateway Integration: Scan4Pads contains an E-wallet attached to the profile of each girl that is topped up using M-PESA, a mobile phone-based money transfer service widely used in Kenya. The girl’s caregiver is required to top up 30% of the total amount of a pad into the girl’s E-wallet account while the rest of the cost (70%) is footed by Scan4Pads. The caregiver’s contribution roughly translates to just 20 KES ($ 0.2), making it very affordable and translating it into a priority budget item for them. 

Our philosophy is hinged on the focus on a girl’s essential needs; both health-related and educational. We appreciate that everything we do to assist her, has to start with her and end with her, with everything in-between leveraging technology.

Our impact goals are to:

1. Improve the health and well-being including the (mental health) of the girls by raising awareness and breaking the stigma around menstrual health management.

2. Improve school attendance transition rates and reduce dropout rates that are attributed to pregnancy.

3. Educating caregivers on ways to raise and save money through income-generating enterprises such as making the famous Maasai beads and traditional ornaments which the women can sell in the local markets. This would inspire the creation of table banking and other microfinance initiatives, driving a financial empowerment independence mindset. Proceeds from the sales and savings can be used to purchase hygienic menstrual health management.

Our strategic plan key areas of focus are on:

1. Automating and centralizing distribution,

2. Forging transformative partnerships with industry players and manufacturers,

3. Expanding the number of schools receiving the service by 3 in each year within 5 year, and

4. Expanding our services to neighbouring underserved counties in Kenya.

According to UN Women, achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment is integral to each of the 17  SDG goals. Only by ensuring the rights of women and girls across all the goals will we get justice and inclusion, economies that work for all, and sustaining our shared environment now and for future generations.

Women and girls’ access to Menstrual Health Hygiene (MHH) is also central to achieving other SDGs. The lack of basic knowledge about puberty and menstruation may contribute to early and unwanted pregnancy; the stress and shame associated with menstruation can negatively affect mental health; and unhygienic sanitation products may make girls susceptible to reproductive tract infections – all affecting SDG health outcomes (Goal 3). Girls may be absent or less attentive in school during menstruation due to a lack of WASH facilities or support from the school community, affecting education (Goal 4). Existing cultural inequities and discriminatory practices make a girl’s education fall below the pecking order in respect to priority, affecting the achievement of SDG 10, reduced inequalities.

SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being

In inhospitable communities, the stress and shame associated with menstruation can negatively affect mental health; and unhygienic sanitation products may make girls susceptible to reproductive tract infections – all affecting SDG health outcomes (Goal 3).

Target 3.7. By 2030, ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programs.

Indicator 3.7.1: Proportion of women of reproductive age (aged 15–49 years) who have their need for family planning satisfied with modern methods

SDG 4: Quality Education. 

Below are the targets and indicators of progress on the attainment of this goal. Highlighted here are those that are relevant to our project:

Target 4.4: Increase the number of people with relevant skills for financial success

UN definition: By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship.

Target 4.5: Eliminate all discrimination in education

UN definition: By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations.

SDG INDICATOR 4.5.1

Disparities in educational access

Definition: Indicator 4.5.1 is Parity indices (female/male, rural/urban, bottom/top wealth quintile and others such as disability status, indigenous peoples and conflict-affected, as data become available) for all education indicators.

This is measured as gender parity in school enrolment, school life expectancy, and completion rate.

SDG 10: REDUCED INEQUALITIES

Target 10.3: Ensure equal opportunities and end discrimination

UN definition: Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard.

SDG INDICATOR 10.3.1

Eliminating discriminatory practices

Definition: Indicator 10.3.1 is the proportion of population reporting having personally felt discriminated against or harassed in the previous 12 months on the basis of a ground of discrimination prohibited under international human rights law.

Having highlighted our general impact follows suit to use digital innovations and ecosystems in the transformative experience for young learners geared towards future generations.

Objective 1: Upheld girls’ dignity and proper menstrual health management.

Activities:

• Guidance and counselling training thrice a month on reproductive health (including sex education) and hygienic management of menstruation.

• Daily registration and subscription for  adolescent girls in the Scan4Pads application.

• Monthly distribution of sanitary towels to girls via Scan4Pads

• Quarterly pad and  fund drive events.

• Forge collaborations and meaningful partnerships with industry experts, manufacturers, local governments, and social welfare agencies.

Outputs:

  Increased girls confidence and self-esteem

• Improved knowledge and skills on menstrual hygiene

• Psychological wellness before, during and after menses.

• Increased retention of adolescent girls in school

• Raising sustainable funds to support the purchase and distribution of sanitary towels.

• At least 76 girls receive sanitary towels per quarter

• Signed MOUs with industry experts, manufacturers, local governments, and social welfare agencies.

Objective 2: Bridging the digital divide

Activities:

1. Use of 4G and 5G connectivity.
2. Use of digital payment gateways by parents/ caregivers.
3. Use of smart mobile gadgets.

Outputs:

Utilizing mobile money services to enable financial transactions 

Utilizing the system to show transparency

Using 4G and 5G connectivity will have a 10% increase in the Mobile Broadband adoption, causing a 0.8% increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This means more utility on services such as mobile money.

Objective 3: Improved school attendance, transition rates, and community engagement.

Activities:

Attending AGMs and PTA meetings.

Joint Follow ups with teachers on households with children with chronic absenteeism.

Engage the younger kids and enhance their education through campaigns that impact their knowledge base.

Outputs:

• Increased involvement by the community in learning activities. 

• Over 200 girls transitioned into higher learning, in two years, and over 1000 in 5 years.

• Nurturing competent peer mentors.

• Reduced chronic absenteeism.

• Run parallel educational and nutritional drives such as; the Nkatiini Fun and Reading Club to raise books and toys for children between ages 3-9. 

• Run a pilot feeding programme at Siyapei to ensure children can get nutritional porridge which is essential for early childhood development.

Scan4Pads, which is powered by Android, acts as a fully-fledged Information system that allows the monitoring and generation of reports of the monthly distribution of sanitary towels which incorporates QR code technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI) to monitor the amount of sanitary pads available and advise on the need for replenishing, USSD and GSM protocols, mobile payment and an embedded E-wallet. It uses QR code to not just store but also print details of the registered young girls on a scannable card (Identification Card size) which is offered to them for easy identification before being supplied with sanitary towels (pads). The system has an in-built E wallet feature attached to a girl's profile. Through a mobile money API integration, the E-wallet is periodically topped-up using M-PESA, a mobile phone based money transfer service widely used in Kenya. The system will require the guardian or parent to top up 30% (between KES 15- KES 20 or $0.15 - $0.2) of the total amount of a pad into the girl’s E-wallet account while the rest of the cost (70%) is footed by the Maisumata Initiative.

A girl should then present her QR code printed card to the administrator (a school teacher) for scanning in order to be issued with a sanitary towel. The process is iterative, as informed by the emergence of a need. 

Shared values

The Maisumata values help create a culture where the girls in our community, parents and caregivers, our staff, partners, community leaders, and all other key stakeholders feel supported, valued, respected and inspired. We continue to drive a narrative that is centred around the African Ubuntu philosophy that; in order for Maisumata to thrive, we must work harmoniously by upholding our shared values of collegiality, integrity, and transparency.

Diversity

We boast of a team of diverse talents, backgrounds, tastes, opinions and experiences. We acknowledge the essence of this diversity and attribute our collective successes as Maisumata to this range of “united differences.” 

Our team’s ethnic backgrounds combine to create a cultural cocktail that makes us truly Kenyan, but above all, human. We are made up of both the young and elderly, volunteers and full-time staff, and different academic backgrounds, which upholds a kind of balance that rides on each other’s strengths.  

Ambassadors of change

At its conception, Maisumata vouched for the teen girls and condemned the actions of the old generation. After purposeful and intentional interactions with the community elders, we learnt that we could not succeed without bringing them on-board. We saw the need to teach them to adopt modern and progressive practices. Over time, these sympathizers of age-old backward practices have become the ambassadors and advocates of change, that is; fighting for the girl child’s health and educational needs.

In the same spirit, we continue to welcome- wholeheartedly, teen beneficiaries who transition to high school or tertiary institutions, to come back and support other beneficiaries through general volunteer work and peer mentorship among other worthy engagements. 

Shared responsibility

Maisumata's work is committed to its meaningful and effective collaboration strategy; with the teachers and relevant government institutions such as the County Government of Narok and the Ministry of Education, at the core of its operational framework. 

Acknowledging just how much of a shared responsibility a community’s prosperity is, we remain committed to holding all our stakeholders accountable to the achievement of, in specificity, SDGs 3,4 and 10. 

Through training and workshops, we aim to create an entrepreneurial community that is self-sustaining through savings and income generation initiatives that will be used to pay for the sanitary towels and other menstrual health resources. Such an entrepreneurial venture would be bead weaving, popularly known as the Maasai beads, and native beaded clothing items, livestock keeping and dairy farming.

Our venture is a social enterprise that employs an embedded service subsidization business model

Beneficiary Segments

Our primary beneficiaries are teen girls between the ages of 10 to 15 years, and in grade 5 to grade 8 (Who’ve experienced menarche).

Social And Customer Value Proposition

Our digital mobile solution, allows a parent/caregiver to top-up funds through mobile money. The guardian or parent only tops up 30% (between KES 15- KES 20 or $0.15 - $0.2) of the total amount of a sanitary towel into the girl’s e-wallet account while the rest of the cost (70%) is footed by the Maisumata Initiative. The sanitary towels are dispensed at the schools where these girls attend. It is not only affordable, but also accessible and convenient.

Impact Measures

By ensuring a girl has a consistent and sustainable way of hygienically and affordably managing her menstrual health, we are assured of a direct educational performance and progression by the girl, a more empowered and progressive community, and a transformative culture of social equity.

Surplus

The proceeds and any revenues accrued are reinvested back into the organization to fund campaigns and projects such as the annual “Trek4Pads”, a drive that seeks to create menstrual health awareness and raise more funds to purchase sanitary towels through a trek in the hilly Narok community.

Market Scope

Health, Education, Information Technology, and Communities

“Entrepreneurship without innovation is just trading and innovation without entrepreneurship is just being creative.” 

This is a popular slogan which we live by.

1. We believe in creative meaningful collaborations and forging impactful partnerships. This can only be achieved when we all speak from a position of shared value and clamour for positive impact. In previous engagements, we have approached local sanitary towel manufacturers in order to secure a subsidized supply of sanitary towels.

In their different capacities, partners can not only contribute financially, but also socially and intellectually. Through concerted efforts, we are able to have impact at scale.

1. Our solution employs a service for good models. It embeds the virtue of transparency to ensure we are accountable to all the stakeholders. Through monitoring and evaluation, we are able to track and account for our revenues, expenses and any miscellaneous costs. This way, we are guaranteed of landing like-minded partners to advance our agendas and goals.

2. To advance our impact at scale, we continue working on expanding the functionalities of our Scan4Pads application. We are actively sourcing for a talented team of developers to scale the deployment and accumulate data that can be used in surveys and research.

We remain very appreciative of the international acclaims Maisumata has garnered in the space of two years. 

In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) feted the Scan4Pads project for being a Women in Tech winning project under the theme: "Connect 2030: ICTs for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)". 

In 2021, Ericsson declared Scan4Pads an African regional winner and global semi-finalist in the year’s “Bridging the Digital Divide” innovation challenge. For making it to the semi-final stage of the competition, we were awarded 1,200 Euros.

Recently, the project got the honor of being accepted for publishing as a research paper which was presented in the 2022 5th International Conference on Information and Computer Technologies (ICICT 2022).