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Femme International

Support Femme International

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Shop now and support a worthy cause.

When you purchase Poetic Art prints and greeting cards you can support the efforts of  Femme International. A total of 40% of each greeting card or print purchase made from December 1st until December 30th will go to support Femme International.

It`s easy to support the cause.

Just browse through Poetic Art Studio`s collection of greeting cards and unique art prints and when you are checking out remember to select Femme International as the referring organization. This way, partial proceeds of your purchase will go to support Femme International’s critical programmes.

About Femme International

Femme International was founded in January 2013 to address a massive gap in WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) and development programming – menstruation. Menstruation is the number one reason why girls in developing countries are missing school, and is a root cause of the gender disparity which exists in communities like Kenya. The lack of knowledge surrounding menstruation, combined with the lack of access to commercial sanitary products has resulted in a massive public health issue which is ignored by the vast majority of international aid organizations and UN agencies.

In Nairobi’s Mathare Valley slum, school girls will miss an average of 3-4 days of school each month due to her period, which adds up to nearly 20% of the school year. The cheapest package of sanitary pads costs approximately 60KSH – just less than the average daily wage of most unskilled labourers. When they aren’t able to afford pads, girls will use rags, bits of mattress stuffing, newspaper, leaves, even used sanitary pads. Not only are these methods ineffective and uncomfortable, but can lead to serious heath issues. It is estimated that approximately 50% of girls in Mathare have at one time or other traded sex for pads.

Femme International has come up with a solution. The Feminine Health Management Program combines education and sustainability to provide school girls with a healthy way to manage their menstruation. The program has two components, and the first is EDUCATION. Femme leads participants through a series of interactive workshops to teach them about how their bodies work, including reproductive health, puberty, the menstrual cycle, pre-menstrual syndrome, sexual health, and how to stay healthy every day of the month. The second component is the DISTRIBUTION of Femme Kits. These Kits are designed to include everything a girl needs to manage her period in a safe and sustainable way. What makes these Kits sustainable is a menstrual cup – a surgical grade silicone cup that is inserted into the vagina to collect, rather than absorb menstrual fluid. When properly maintained, menstrual cups last for 10 years.

Femme has already successfully implemented a trial FHM (Feminine Health Management) project in Mathare in May 2013, and all but one participant has reported using the menstrual cup successfully! In November, Femme distributed nearly 200 Femme Kits at three schools in Mathare.

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