Make Stuff: Goods 4 Girls

You may have seen the new commercials sponsored by Tampax and Always about girls in Africa that have to miss school because they aren't able to manage their menstrual flow because of a lack of women's sanitary supplies. At first glance, the commercial tugs at you heart and the company's commitment to providing supplies seems like a reasonable solution to the problem at hand. Who doesn't want to keep girls in school? The cynical side of me kicked in quick as I wondered if it really could be that simple. Turns out, it's not.

There have been a few articles that have discussed the problems with such a plan. This caused one mother to start working on a plan of her own to make a distribute reusable menstrual pads in areas of Africa where water is readily available to clean the pads. For these areas, this is obviously a more sustainable answer to a real big problem. For these girls, it means trading in rags, banana leaves and newspaper for something they can actually rely on. Check out the Goods 4 Girls website for more information on how to get involved.

UPDATE: More details on the aid organizations Goods 4 Girls will be working with can be found here.