Addressing period poverty in Tripoli, Lebanon – Part 2
In 2021, the Lebanese Social Enterprise, Roof and Roots Association, UN Women and ACTED, launched a sanitary product manufacturing unit in Jabal Mohsen, Tripoli, Lebanon. The unit seeks to address women’s increased need for safe and affordable hygiene products, in light of Lebanon’s soaring economy and the rise of period poverty. Under the project 20 women have received training sessions on the production of sanitary products at a manufacturing unit, and a further 100 women were trained in marketing the products.
The women manufacturers produced an initial batch of 13,500 packs of menstruation items by March 2022, which were sold through door-to-door sales by women participating in the project, with a percentage of production distributed to vulnerable women residing in the area.
In November 2022, with generous funding from the government of Japan, a small-scale solar power plant was inaugurated to provide much-needed green electrical power necessary for the manufacturing unit’s operations amid Lebanon’s repetitive and prolonged power outages.