Be sure to take notes as you listen to Diana Sierra share how she used her background in product design to start the social enterprise Be Girl Pads. As the first in a series of interviews featuring members of the Halcyon Incubator in Washington D.C., Diana touches on every aspect of a starting a social enterprise on how sharing ideas and resources in a group setting can be vital to success. Be Girl Pads makes environmentally friendly and affordable feminine menstrual management products that help women in Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Malawi overcome barriers to have an improved quality of life. Diana saw firsthand how the lack of access to sanitary feminine products affect the women of rural Africa, causing some to miss 30 percent of the school year. Diana Sierra recognized the importance of menstrual health management in improving the quality of life, health, and economic development for the women of Africa. She set out to find a solution and used her creative design skills to develop a prototype pad using an umbrella and mosquito net. She was overwhelmed by positive feedback she received while testing the product during her time volunteering with Millenium Promise. Two years later, Be Girl is still pushing towards empowering women by designing products that let girls celebrate their femininity and be proud to be girls.
Shownotes:
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Best book you have ever read:
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The Persian Boy by Mary Renault
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Social Venture to check out:
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Apopo- a social enterprise that researches, develops and implements detection rats technology for humanitarian purposes such as Mine Action and Tuberculosis detection. APOPO is a Belgian NGO, with headquarters in Tanzania and operations in Mozambique, Thailand, Angola and Cambodia
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Best piece of advice
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Good things happen to good people even if sometimes they do not look like that.
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Biggest challenge you have had to overcome in your life
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Overcoming the perception that a girl from a small town in columbia could not dreams to change lives on a global scale.
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First thing everyone can start doing right now to change the world:
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Think Small: look for ways you can impact someone in a positive way in your own neighborhood.
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You don’t have to do have a huge breakthrough to change the world. Start by changing one life.
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Contact:
