Making reusable pads that a girl will actually use

Three layers and a fastening. The top layer is soft cotton, the part that sits against the skin: brushed cotton, flannel, or a well-washed old bedsheet. The core is the absorbent part, usually two to four layers of towelling or folded cotton, cut smaller than the top so it does not show at the edges. The backing is a firmer cotton, and if you can get a piece of waterproof material it goes just under the core rather than across the whole pad.

The wings are two flaps that fold under the knickers and fasten. Use press studs or a button and a buttonhole. Never a safety pin, which opens.

Choose dark cloth. Not because a stain matters, but because a pale pad that has been used and washed looks stained forever and a girl will stop using it long before it has worn out.

This is a straightforward job for anyone who can use a machine, and it can be done by hand with a firm backstitch. Make one first and let a girl wear it for a full day before cutting a whole set, because the length that suits her is the thing worth getting right.

Work backwards from a school day. She will change two or three times a day on the heavy days, and she will not be washing at school. So each day needs two or three clean pads, and each used pad needs a day or more to be washed and dried before it comes round again.

Six to eight pads is a working set for most girls. Four sounds like enough and is not, especially in the rains when nothing dries in a day. Make a couple of them longer and thicker for the heavy nights.

Add two or three pairs of knickers that fit properly, because a loose pair lets the pad shift, and a small waterproof pouch or a plastic bag for carrying a used pad home. Without the pouch she will leave it in the latrine, and a girl who loses two pads has lost the set.

Rinse in cold water first, as soon as she can, until the water runs clear. Hot water on fresh blood cooks the stain into the cloth and it never comes out. This one rule is the difference between a set that lasts and a set that is thrown away in three months looking dirty.

Then wash properly with soap in warm water, working the core rather than just the surface, and rinse until there is no soap left. Soap left in the cloth is a common cause of itching. Squeeze the water out rather than twisting hard, which breaks the stitching.

If she cannot rinse straight away, she should soak the pad in a covered container of cold water until she can. Do not leave used pads soaking for days in an open basin in the house, both for privacy and because the smell will put her off the whole idea.

This is the part that decides whether reusable pads work in a household, and it is the part most training sessions skip. Full sun is best because it dries the core through and helps with staining. But a line of pads across the compound is exactly what a girl will not do, and instead she will hide them damp under a mattress, where they smell and can bring irritation.

Work out the drying place before you hand over a set. Practical answers that families use: a line inside the bathing shelter, a line under the eaves at the back of the house, a line with a kitenge or a towel hung over it, or pegging the pads under a larger cloth so they are shaded from view but still in moving air.

In the wet season, or when there is genuinely nowhere, dry them by the cooking fire at a safe distance, or press them with a hot iron until the core is dry through. The test is the middle of the pad, not the surface. If the core is even slightly damp, it goes back out.

Fold each pad along the wings so the used side is inside, and keep the set together in a dry cloth bag rather than loose in a box or under a mattress. A bag she can pick up in one movement means she is not hunting for pads on the morning she needs them.

Keep two of the set in her school bag or with the woman teacher who holds the school's small stock, so a period that starts at school is not a crisis.

Check the set at the start of each term rather than in the middle of a period. That is the moment to notice one has lost a press stud or gone thin.

A well-made pad, washed in cold water first and dried properly, lasts a long time. Field teams generally plan on replacing a set once a year, and budget for it the way they budget for a uniform, rather than assuming a set made once will see a girl through secondary.

The signal to replace is not how it looks. It is whether it still absorbs. A core that has thinned and gone hard, or a top layer that has worn through, means the pad will leak and she will stop trusting it. Replace individual pads as they go rather than waiting for the whole set.

Press studs pull out before the cloth does. Sewing them back on takes minutes and keeps the pad in service, so it is worth showing a girl how to do that herself rather than depending on a tailor.

Making them at home is cheaper if somebody in the household can sew and there is cloth to hand, and the pad can be cut to suit the girl. It also means a replacement is a Saturday afternoon rather than a trip to town.

Buying a ready-made set is worth it where nobody sews, where the machine is not available, or where the household is short of time rather than money. A poorly made pad that shifts and leaks is worse than none, because it costs a girl her confidence as well as a day.

Making them is also a trade. Groups in our districts sew sets and sell them to neighbouring schools and shops, which turns a household need into income and keeps the supply local. If a group is going to try it, price it properly first and buy the cloth and press studs in bulk rather than a metre at a time.

Sessions fail in predictable ways. Twenty women, three machines and one pattern means most people watch. Cloth cut before anyone has seen a finished pad means a room full of pieces nobody can assemble.

Bring a finished pad and pass it round first. Work in small groups around each machine with hand-sewing going on in parallel, so nobody is idle. Have everyone finish one whole pad in the session, even a rough one, rather than starting six.

End with the washing and drying conversation, not the sewing, and get each household to say out loud where their pads will dry. A woman who leaves without an answer to that will not use what she has made.