Women Empowerment, Covid-19 Response, Health and Sanitation.
Altogether the Covid-19 pandemic caused an economic downturn, brought about the need for adequate sanitation measures, and significantly escalated threats to women’s safety and security.
In Nyamira County, lockdown measures have led to a surge in gender-based violence. Poverty is also on the rise, and many rural households across the country lack access to necessities such as soap and clean water, essential to curb the spread of the Coronavirus.
Our Covid-19 Response Project provides handmade soap branded as Saada Soaps – derived from Msaada; the Kiswahili word for help – to community members who are most vulnerable to the virus.
In collaboration with our Infused: Bath and Balms social enterprise, we are working with local women to collectively contribute towards the mitigation of the health and social and economic impacts of the pandemic, within underprivileged villages. With the help of skilled marginalized women whom we train to manufacture hand-crafted soap, we work with locals from town centers to increase access to sanitary products to those who need it most. By working with women, we provide them with free soap artisan training, helping facilitate their financial freedom during this difficult time and harnessing their craft skills to curb the spread of the virus.
In 2020 this project was funded by the Global Greengrants Fund. We hope to get more support for this project to keep our workshop running as we continue manufacturing and freely distributing natural hand-crafted soap, and fight the virus together.
