How Lady Luck shone Sh120m on varsity team
By Lucky Oluoch, September 29, 2022Two years ago, a group of students from St Paul’s University, Limuru, came together with the same vision of ending menstrual period poverty that has for long sullied the lives of girls, young women and many parents in rural communities.
Globally, more than 500 million women experience “period poverty”, barring them from basic feminine products like sanitary towels due to their relatively high cost.
Student Lennox Omondi came up with an idea. He shared it among a few friends with the hope that they would join him in his dream.
Most of the people he shared the idea with were doubtful; they thought it was one of those get-rich-quick fantasies that every university student has.
Still determined to have a team to work with, Lennox approached other friends that he believed were like-minded. After a while, he assembled a group that came to be known as Eco-Bana.
Social enterprise
Eco-Bana is a social enterprise that seeks to solve period poverty by manufacturing biodegradable, eco-friendly and hygienic sanitary towels to replace commercial, plastic ones.
The other team mates are Kylie Muthoni Ogolla, Dullah Shilton, Brian Ndung’u and Emanuel Omondi.
They then started the journey that, to many, seemed impossible, but meant a lot to them. Further, one of the team member — Kylie – had been a victim of period poverty, thus giving greater zeal to Eco-Bana.
Kylie had to drop out of school 15 years ago because she could not afford sanitary towels. She came from a humble background and was raised in Meru county by her aunt since her mother did menial jobs to sustain the family. But her aunt was also struggling financially.
It all started when she was in class. “I started feeling excruciating pain in the stomach — so extreme that I could not concentrate on the teacher. I informed the class tutor who then sent me out to drink warm water mixed with salt. But the pain persisted,” she recalls.
“When it was time to go home, some boys started making fun of me due to a red spot on my uniform. I was not aware of it at the time. One boy even touched my uniform to confirm it was a blood stain. They all made fun of me,” she narrates.
Towel or food?
On reaching home, she shared the ordeal with her aunt, who then had to decide whether to buy her a sanitary towel, or food for the family. Food won. The aunt then made what looked like a sanitary towel from rags. Kylie had no choice but to use it. In school, the ‘towel’ was uncomfortable and frequently leaked, to the amusement of her classmates. One day, she went home and decided never to return to school.
Kylie joined her aunt and mum in doing menial jobs to provide for the family, raise school fees and get extra cash to buy sanitary pads so that she could resume her studies. When she returned to school, she constantly reused her sanitary towels.
The Eco-Bana team also suffered hostility from other university students. “Some called us ‘pad men’ for engaging in feminine products. It was almost a taboo topic. We gave them a deaf ear,” says Emanuel.
When Eco-Bana heard of the Enactus Kenya National Competitions, they decided to give it a try. Enactus Kenya deploys entrepreneurial action to propel sustainable human progress. In the competitions, there were over 30 universities and 2,800 students.
As fate would have it, the team was trounced and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology won the Enactus Kenya National Competition. Eco-Bana returned to their university, not as losers but as a group of exposed youth with a project to advance.
Early this year, they registered to participle in the Hult Prize Competition. Their project did well and proceeded to the next level (regionals), held in Johannesburg, South Africa. They emerged as the best in Africa.
Their dream started taking shape, making them even more keen to actualise it.
Their patron, Michael Mungai, helped them register Eco-Bana as a limited liability company, with Lennox Omondi as chief executive officer, Kylie Muthoni Ogolla as chief operations officer, Brian Ndung’u as chief communication and marketing officer, Dullah Shilton as chief financial officer and Emanuel Omondi as chief technical officer.
Back in Kenya, they were feted in many other competitions, and emerged third overall, and first in the students category, of the Kiambu County Innovation Day, hosted at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.
They were also voted Best Innovative Project 2022 at ESD Awards held at Kenya Education Management Institute, Nairobi, organised by Africa for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Among six finalists
Last Sunday, only three of the team members travelled to New York City, USA, for the Hult Global Prize held at the Clinton Global Initiative. The group was among six finalists competing for the US$ 1 million prize.
Kylie’s visa delayed while Emanuel was unable to get a visa.
Other finalists were Cooseii (Taiwan), Breer (Hong Kong), Savvy Engineers (Pakistan), Openversum (Switzerland), and Flexie (Australia). The team met and interacted with former US President Bill Clinton, who delivered the keynote address and also awarded them.
In an interview with BBC, Lennox said it was a privilege to meet the former US President. And Kenya’s President, William Ruto, also congratulated them for winning.
Lennox says: “Innovation is at the core of saving Africa, because we have the potential and the energy to come up with the best solutions. If you have an idea, and feel it’s going to change the world, go out and do it with determination, energy and persistence.”
He reveals: “We settled on banana fibers because of their good absorption rate, and environment-friendly nature. Hence Eco-Bana”.
At 11.55pm last Thursday, the Qatar Airways plane that they had boarded landed in Kenya.
They were quickly chauffeured to a city hotel to rest.
The next morning, they were received by a team from St Paul’s University administration staff and fellow students, led by deputy vice-chancellor of Academic Affairs, Peter Ngure.
Then they were driven heroically to the university, accompanied by University Students’ Association chairperson Marvin Ibrahim and a convoy of ecstatic comrades.