A Harvard graduate, her work has brought accolades from 85 Broads, her alma matter, Greenwich Academy, and most recently the 2009 prize for best business plan at the Wharton Africa Business forum business plan competition. Read more about her background here and follow her blogs below as she shares what she’s learning on the journey of a global, coordinated, replicable national sanitary pads solution.
Megan White Mukuria bought a one-way ticket in 2001 to come and start businesses for street children, having been invited to help lead the organization she’s volunteered with in 1998. She quickly realized the cost of sanitary pads – to the organizational budget, and to the environment, and to the girls when they lacked pads. Her quest to solve that challenge in a sustainable way led to the creation of ZanaAfrica in 2007, before she’d heard the term “social entrepreneur.” Along the way she became a global leader in the issue of menstruation management, launching the first ever National Sanitary Towels Campaign in 2006 as incoming president of her Rotary Club, and later its Coordinating Committee in 2008.
Do Pads Keep Girls in School?
Studies show that yes, they do. A Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) study in Kenya in 2007 showed over two months, sanitary pad provision coupled with reproductive health education reduced absenteeism from 4.9 days to 1.2 days per month [...]
Who’s the savior in your story?
America has a crisis in accountability, and I want to propose that it is happening when we are the center of our story, or we put other mortals as our saviors. This Easter weekend, those of us espousing the Christian [...]
Coming down with a case of the Hague
Achoo! I feel we’re coming down with a bad case of the Hague… or should I say a GREAT case of the Hague. It rhymes with plague, and today Kenya’s Pharaohs are feeling the heat, because they’re day of reckoning [...]
Youth Tsunami II: Inequalities and Corruption
In my last blog, I spoke about the demographics of youth, how their sheer volumes are a major factor in creating a socio-political tsunami, and how the level of literacy and education may contribute to peaceful or violent regime change. [...]
Youth Tsunami I: Demographics of Youth
We are witness these days to two major forces at work in the world: water and youth. Both can be tranquil, calm, and a source of peace, providing vital services to society; both can be a major force of destruction, [...]
Theories of Change
ZanaA was created out of my experience in Kenya for six years, working with street girls, thinking about the world of “development” and what was good and bad about it, looking at the for-profit world and what was good and [...]
You, yes you: Help girls blog and tweet!
Happy new year! Hope your start to the new year has been as great as ours, which has been complete with fabulous volunteers from Wharton and Middlebury and a new grant: This week we join The Girl Effect by bringing [...]
Sex workers are mommies too
Are you defined by your job? Sure, your spouse might say you are married to your work, and may have considered filing a missing person’s report because you’re on the job all the time. But: is your job what defines [...]
