Friday, March 29, 2024
Meet the Founder

Kenya’s Barclay Paul is Providing Affordable and Reusable Sanitary Towels for Girls from Low-income Families

Barclay Paul Okari is a Kenya-based entrepreneur who constantly comes up with innovative ideas to improve his immediate community.

Growing up in a community ravaged by war and election violence, Paul has witnessed a multitude of issues that needs resolving in his community, however, he is currently focused on providing sanitary towels for women.

He is the Founder of Impact Africa Industries, a company that was founded in 2010. The venture is called Safi pads and it is situated in Kitale in Western Kenya and the company basically manufactures affordable, washable and reusable sanitary towels for women. He was motivated by the  fact that prices of sanitary towels were too expensive for families strapped for cash resources, so, he and his team developed a product that could help thousands of women while still turning a profit.

His idea was inspired by the problem he discovered while working as a volunteer teacher in a government secondary school, where he noticed that most of the girls missed classes during their monthly periods as a result of not being able to afford sanitary pads.

These reusable sanitary towels save a large percentage of families’ budgets and makes the lives of many customers more enjoyable in the process. The company started with selling the pads in informal settlements of Kenya three years ago and they now sell the pads to as far as Uganda and South Sudan.

Safi Pads currently has 23 employees, 15 of whom are women who help in production and distribution of the sanitary pads. The fast-growing company is currently running on a revenue scale of $300 000 per annum.

Today, Impact Africa Industries produces Safi pads, a kit which contains six reusable pads and two adjustable pants.

Barclay’s ultimate goal is to build an African conglomerate, invest in various sectors and create more jobs and push Africa’s economy to the next growth stage and these pads are currently being distributed in Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, East Africa with Kenya being the biggest market

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