Living goods is an “Avon-like” network of franchised community health promoters who provide health education and earn a living selling essential health products door-to-door at prices affordable to the poor.
BanaPads
Target Population
Health focus
- Family planning and reproductive health
Summary
BanaPads’ micro-franchise business model aims to harness the power of micro-entrepreneurs selling door to door in an Avon-style network to reinvent rural trade and scale up the access to sanitary pads designed to improve health and productivity.Program goals
The aim of BanaPads’ business venture is to locally source and produce affordable, eco-friendly sanitary pads made of banana pseudo-stems and herbal leaves with anti-microbial properties to prevent rashes formed during menstruation.
Key program components
The sanitary pads, BanaPads, are distributed and sold by a woman-to-woman sales force, who receives a ‘business in a bag, a complete start-up kit of inventory, training and marketing support. By 2016, BanaPads seeks to build a network of over 400 women entrepreneurs that will reach more than 50 000 rural girls and women.
BanaPads’ micro-franchise business model aims to harness the power of micro-entrepreneurs selling door to door in an Avon-style network to reinvent rural trade and scale up the access to sanitary pads designed to improve health and productivity.
In the Ugandan and Tanzanian context, the innovative aspects of Banapads’ project include the fact that the BanaPad is an affordable and eco- friendly product that is sold by a by-women, to-women distribution network , which is strengthened by women’s strong position and relationships within the family and the community.
Related Programs
Millions of women around the world cannot afford sanitary napkins, mainly because they’re manufactured using expensive machinery and thus priced at a premium. Such women resort to an older and cheaper alternative – a piece of cloth or rag.
Healthy Entrepreneurs distributes high quality and affordable essential health products, services and information enhancing the health of people in developing countries. HE organizes an end-to-end supply chain to local entrepreneurs, who run a pharmacy or drugstore, and health facilities.
DKT HEALTHCARE (Thailand) Co., Ltd. was founded in June 2009 in response to three main problems facing Thailand's Ministry of Health: inadequate number of health personnel, low access to family planning services in the southern region, and decreasing use of male contraceptive methods.
DKT will develop innovative outreach, education, and marketing efforts to shift family planning behavior and to expand the contraceptive market.
