Ozami is an innovative online greetings card company, with a strong social enterprise leaning. What that means is that when you send a birthday card, an anniversary greeting or our special personalised Ozi greetings at our website https://ozami.com/ most, if not all the profit from the transaction will go to an NGO. We particularly love working with environmental and water, sanitation and hygiene NGOs.
Our work with SuS Pads on Menstrual Hygiene
Another organisation we work with regularly, is a start up NGO called sustainable menstrual hygiene pads initiative. One of the most difficult aspects of sanitation to talk about is menstruation. This makes menstruation, a natural body process to be pushed into the background, with rather fatal health consequences for women and girls. SuS Pads Initiative works with women and girls to demystify this important biological process.
Apart from demystifying menstruation, SuS Pads work with women and girls trapped in period poverty to free themselves from the trapp with information and resources to make their own reusable sanitary pads.
We are currently working with SuS Pads, to train dozens of women and girls in sustainable menstrual hygiene. Our work is built around the annual menstrual hygiene day. This year’s menstrual hygiene day is on the 28th of May. The more collaborations and organisations that get together for a better menstrual hygiene in Nigeria, the better.
How you can help for better menstrual hygiene in your community
Menstrual hygiene is a critical aspect of overall health and well-being of women and adolescent girls. Unfortunately, millions of women and girls around Nigeria face challenges in managing their menstrual cycles with dignity. Gender inequality, cultural taboos, poverty, and lack of basic hygiene services exacerbate these difficulties. Basic exploration of key strategies to improve and promote good sanitary practices will go a long way to inform and hopefully encourage you to advocate for better menstrual hygiene in your area.
Social Support
Creating an open dialogue around menstruation is important. Educating girls, boys, and communities about menstruation helps break down stigma and dispel myths. When society views menstruation as a healthy and natural process, it becomes easier to address related needs. This is one of the core work of SuS Pads. They start dialogue in communities and schools.
Knowledge and Skills
Providing accurate information about menstrual health is crucial. Schools, community centres, and health programs should include comprehensive menstrual education. Topics can range from understanding the menstrual cycle to proper hygiene practices. As a popular saying goes, knowledge is power. With the knowledge and tools we provide young adult during training with SuS Pads, they are empowered to move forward confidently.
Absorbent Materials and Supportive Supplies
Regularly changing menstrual products is essential for hygiene. Encourage the use of high-quality pads, tampons, or menstrual cups. All the aforementioned are fantastic, but one that potentially performs better, from a sustainability and affordability angle is reusable options. It is more affordable, reduces waste and promotes sustainability. This is why SuS Pads run several training workshops every quarter.
Our work with Hope Spring on Clean Water Projects
One of the clean water charities we work with frequently, is Agege based Hope Spring water charity. Over the life of our collaboration, Ozami and Hope Spring have partnered to provide access to clean water to several communities, with at least thirty thousand or more beneficiaries.
Our collaboration with Hope Spring continues. Our ambition this year is to increase the number of people we helped, to at least one hundred thousand. In the first quarter of this year, we collaborated with Hope Spring on a total of three borehole projects, one in Agege, the second in Ifako and the third in the Lekki Adeba community. We are currently in conversation with them about our fourth collaboration this year.
You can follow the progress of our collaboration with Hope Spring on their website or Ozami’s website. You are also invited to to contact us if you think we can help your community or a community you know that is in need of safe, clean water.
Ozami – We Are Open to Collaboration With More NGOs
Our collaboration with the two NGOs mentioned above is going as we expected. The collaboration yields the social benefit we expected it to yield. We hope to continue the partnership for the foreseeable future. We would also like to expand our collaboration, to include other sustainability, WaSH and environmental charities. If you are part of such an organisation, we would love to hear from you. The best way to contact us is via our website, there is a link to it on the top of this article. We look forward to hearing from you.
