2019-2020

Project Kilimanjaro is excited to announce a partnership with Womenchoice Industries and grassroots organization Elle Peut Naidim to facilitate a pilot project in Arusha, Tanzania that focuses on Menstrual Health Hygiene and Management.

The purpose of the pilot is to create a Menstrual Health Hygiene and Management (MHHM) course that is deeply responsive to women’s lived experience with reusable sanitary pads (RSPs). Research has shown that merely providing women with RSPs with little instruction is not effective, because it does not help them navigate the complexities of use. Such complexities include water access, privacy concerns, space to change their pads, and stigmas surround menstruation. To date, a set of best practices surrounding RSPs in the contexts in which they are typically administered does not exist. 

Elle Peut Naidim is an Arusha-based NGO that focuses on providing a comprehensive, responsive 90 minute MHHM course to communities via their partnership with NGOs that have purchased and seek to disseminate RSPs within a community. 

To that end Project Kilimanjaro is undertaking a 3-month community project in which young women in Secondary Schools in Longido, Tanzania receive RSPs, use them, and in turn provide feedback to the organizations about what it’s really like to use them. We seek to understand women’s concerns with their use—if any—and to co-create creative solutions to any issues that may arise with the RSPs through a process of conversation. 

2018-2019

YEAR by YEAR GROWTH

The development of our organization will lead to the complete development of a children’s health and wellness center by the end of 2019. Project Kilimanjaro’s immediate action was chosen in order to spark an initial driving force for the betterment of the children’s health care in eastern Africa where outreach has yet to make its mark.

December 2019

We are currently undertaking research of successful healthcare systems in limited resource locations. We hope to establish our own model of healthcare that caters to the Maasai of the Longido District and improving the community’s access to healthcare.

August 2019

Volunteers from the University of California, San Diego - Athena Doshi, Alexis La, Talia Elliott, Stephanie Fang, Neel Gadhoke, and Rohan Patel - are working with Maasai villages on the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. We have acquired first-aid supplies and sanitary napkins from local, East African distributers and created HIV/AIDS seminar schedules, pamphlets, etc. We are excited to learn about the culture of the Maasai people and work with them to reduce the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, alongside increasing sanitary conditions by providing a clean water pipeline to the villages. We will be encouraging conversation about HIV/AIDS prevention not only in the Maasai villages, but in local schools in Arusha as well. We will also be donating clothing so generously provided by the San Diego community to local orphanages in Arusha, as well as to the pediatric department in Meru District Hospital, a government hospital located in Tengeru. You can follow our journey on instagram @projectkiliforkids , where we will be posting live feeds!

January 2019

Project Kilimanjaro has been working with students at the University of California, San Diego to help bring first-aid kits to the Maasai villages in Tanzania. They have been fundraising enthusiastically throughout the campus and San Diego through pop-up thrift shops, snow cone sales, and donation-based yoga-by-the-beach. Follow their journey at https://www.facebook.com/projectkiliforkids/ !