PanAfrican Sisterhood Health Initiative (PASHI)
Ujima Friends Peace Center’s partnership with the Sankofa Artisan Guild has morphed into a project called PASHI (Pan-African Sisterhood Health Initiative). PASHI meets at the Peace Center on Wednesdays and Thursdays to make and send reusable menstrual products to African women in over 24 countries plus Cuba. This project is funded by the Friends Foundation on Aging and has expanded to include sewing classes for middle and high school students from several schools.
P.A.S.H.I makes and donates reuseable menstrual pads, carry pouches, masks and send panties to schools and organizations in Africa, serving schoolgirls. Many girls miss school and other activities because they cannot afford disposable menstrual hygiene products. PASHI teaches Middle and High School aged youth in the Philadelphia, PA area how to make our donation items, along with teaching them life skills classes. We give away items in the Tri-State area that also benefit the homeless.
In November of 2023, PASHI Coordinator, Mama Maisha Sullivan was asked to do a keynote address at an international conference that focused on the use of Art and Artisans for social justice. PASHI was able to send a delegation of elders to do workshops for women throughout the continent on how to make the reusable pads by hand.
The delegation left reusable menstrual hygiene kits, underwear, and computers for the use of schools and community organizations. Ujima Friends Peace Center is proud of this project and grateful to the Friends Foundation on Aging for its support.
The project began in 2019 as members of the Peace Center began partnered with Sankofa Artisan Guild to make reusable environmentally friendly menstrual pads, pouches, and under garments for African girls’ whose educations are compromised due to “period poverty”. The group is led by a group of Black Women elders, most of who are community workers, keepers of the culture, educators, activists, counselors and lovers of the arts. The Peace Center provides the space, sewing machines, and willing hearts and hands to this project.
The program includes providing training and resources to women visiting from the Sudan so they can start a local program of their own when the return.
Click here to learn a little more about this Pan-African Sisterhood Health Initiative birthing project.
