Sanitary Towel Campaign “Bank on Me” Launches Digital Donation Drive

Musician King Kaka through the Kaka Empire Foundation is on a quest drive to raise 100,000 sanitary towels to help keep needy girls in school through an initiative dubbed Bank on Me Sanitary Bank Campaign. 

Kaka Empire Foundation is in partnership with, Kim-Fay, a local manufacturer of Confidence Sanitary Towels and iPay, an innovative online payment processing company.

The Sanitary Bank Campaign has launched a digital donation drive to enable public participation by encouraging more people to make their financial donations via mobile money, mobile banking, and credit cards, to give girls the confidence they need to stay in school during their menstruation periods.

“This campaign is about recognizing the right of education for girls.  Ministry of Health research shows that 65 percent of girls in rural and slum areas engage in transactional sex because they cannot access sanitary towels. We deeply appreciate partners, well-wishers, and influencers who have come on board to intervene and make our vision a reality,” said King Kaka while speaking about the initiative.

The campaign was initiated in March 2018 and is designed to complement the Government’s effort through Private-Public Participation platforms to give girls free sanitary towels.

More than 10 key partners and numerous influencers have already joined the campaign enabling over 10,000 girls in Machakos, Lamu, Thika, Turkana and Trans Nzoia to access pad which has translated to increased school attendance.

“Beyond donating the sanitary towels to the schoolgirls, the team visiting schools is also giving hygiene tips on proper disposal of the pads, importance of hand washing as well as self-esteem conversations to help the adolescents navigate their puberty years,” Confidence Brand Manager at Kim Fay, Josephine Ngigi,  expounded on the school visits.

“We offered our technology to the Bank On Me campaign to simplify and accelerate the donation process and also enable secure monetary donations from the general public globally,” iPay MD, Philip Nyamwaya, explained the need for transparent digital donation drives.

“Cash donations from as little as Kshs 5/-, mobile money Mpesa, Eazzy Pay or Airtel Money and Safaricom Bonga points can also be used. This will be tracked on the www.bankonme.care website to verify and vet amounts are given to purchase Confidence pads for girls,” he added.

King Kaka is also a UNICEF Advocate and a keynote speaker at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation GoalKeepers event in New York, where he will be representing Kenya to speak on the Sanitary Bank initiative.

The campaign encourages more partners on board to help educate girls and reverse statistics that 88 percent of girls in remote Kenyan schools have no access to sanitary pads which leads to 1 in every 3 girls to miss four days of school every month due to lack of sanitary pads.

Campaign partners already in the drive include UNICEF, Allan Chesang Foundation, Pace, Better 4 Kenya, One FM, Skyward Express, Executive Water, IQ Marketing, Confidence Sanitary Towels, Zamara and Zetech University Symmatech Solutions while influencers include Miss Earth Kenya, Kaka Empire and Kaka Empire Foundation, Kalekye Mumo, Anerlisa Muigai, Caroline Mutoko, Janet Mbugua amongst others.