Happy New Year from The Pachamama Project

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!  2025 was the best year yet and we're so excited to see what 2026 has to offer! Thanks to all, whether you are making pads and bags, helping at HQ, fundraising, KAM snapping, or spreading the word – we hugely appreciate your contribution.

To date, we have distributed more than 180,000 pads, taking more than 22,500 women and girls out of period poverty.  By the end of our next financial year, in April 2026, we will have sent 240,000 pads to people who need them.

Distributions

Morocco

In November, Heidi and I travelled to Morocco with Nadirah from Dignity Project (our partner in Lebanon) and Yaleena, founder of Sanctuary Retreats, to help set up a new partnership to broaden access to menstrual and reproductive health education and safe menstrual products for women, girls and people who menstruate in Ourika, a rural village outside of Marrakech.

During the weeks leading up to our trip, our menstrual health coach Mariam led online training sessions on how to deliver menstrual and reproductive health workshops with 10 women in the village, including nurses and teachers. This was not without its challenges. With almost no wifi, Mariam resorted to spending hours on WhatsApp, sharing videos and exchanging voice notes. Inundated with questions around the menstrual cycle, menopause and fertility, Mariam was shocked to find there was almost no knowledge of women's health issues, even amongst healthcare professionals and teachers. There is no formal menstrual health education on school curricula.

We took enough pads and bags with us for 100 women and girls (800 pads) to get them started. They were delivered along with menstrual health education from those trained up by Mariam, with us on hand for support (which was not needed in the end!). Sessions were hosted for mothers and daughters separately giving them the opportunity to ask questions without shame amongst their peer group, whilst allowing conversations to continue at home. Nadirah supplied print outs of diagrams;  Sana and Manar ran the session for the girls and Latifa ran the session for the women the following day. 

Working in partnership with the Azaghar Sbiti Association, we ran sewing workshops, training the women on pad making. Most of the women only speak Arabic but a couple also spoke French (widely spoken in Morocco). Ella gave the talks, Heidi translated into French and the French was then translated into Arabic. The women are experienced seamstresses and picked up the pad making immediately, using fleece and kam snaps we had taken with us, and cotton that Nadirah arranged to be bought in Marrakech.  Nadirah had also bought and delivered two industrial sewing machines ahead of our visit.

After the final session, we were privileged to be hosted in someone’s home where we had delicious mint tea and where we ran a small focus group.  The feedback was entirely positive:

-          a mother and daughter were discussing periods for the very first time together (aged 27 and 60). Usually, girls hear about periods on the grapevine and never from school or their mothers;

-          previous to receiving our pads, the women used rags from random materials.  Many cited experiencing regular infections, including those who had occasionally used disposable pads (using one pad far too long, not understanding the need to change them regularly);

-          these women heard about PMS for the first time from this session;

-          the women accepted the information given that they can shower during their period and that this will not make them bleed heavily, which is what they had previously believed;

-          they loved the pads we gave them and were particularly engaged because they had seen how they are made;

-          Latifa, who ran the sewing workshop with us and gave the menstrual education session to the women, wants to share the knowledge with other community associations in the region;

-          The women are highly-motivated to continue to make the pads and share the menstrual health education beyond their village.

The visit could not have gone better. We had a celebration with all the women before we left. We were dressed in traditional Berber clothing and had henna painted on our hands.  Photos of us in costume come under “what goes on tour, stays on tour”!   We bought some cakes and sweets and all the women arrived with home made cakes. Nadirah provided a pinata for the children – and we enjoyed the warmth and hospitality of this beautiful, welcoming community.

Having left enough fabric for the women to make a further 400 pads, we are now working with Nadirah and Yaleena on how to fund a larger project so that a school in the region can be supplied with pads – 500 girls and their mothers.  This means a total of 8,000 pads. Nadirah and Yaleena will be back in Ourika in July. The ambition is that they will check in with the project and then oversee the start of distributions in the school.

It was a privilege to see our work in action –the willingness of the women and girls to engage with the sessions, seeing the immediate impact of the education and leaving the community excited to learn more and excited to use our pads.

Lebanon & Syria

After seeing a sizeable shift in the NGO environment in the Bekaa Valley where we have done the majority of our work, we decided to focus our three-year Lebanon strategy on expanding our work to the rest of Lebanon. There are now many NGOs working in the Bekaa on menstrual health, thanks to our work raising awareness and supporting other actors with training and network sharing - there is still a lot of work to be done, but there is now the infrastructure to achieve it.

In August, we conducted our first distribution in Tripoli with new partner Tajrouba, in the most deprived city in Lebanon. Mariam, our menstrual health coach, trained up 10 of Tajrouba's staff on delivering menstrual and reproductive health education before overseeing their sessions with 100 mothers and daughters. We have just received feedback from this new community on the reusable pads showing an 89% satisfaction rating. We are conducting trials with another new partner NGO, Fe-Male in Tripoli and will be rolling out wider distributions with Tajrouba in the new year - all whilst we continue our work in the Bekaa and keep working to get our pads to other regions including the south which is still heavily affected by the war.

We have now distributed 500 kits in Zabadani, Syria in partnership with Jigsaw Charity, Endless Medical Advantage and The Free Shop Lebanon who are keen to establish a presence and reach new communities in a post-Assad Syria!

Uganda

MAC and Rwenzori Women for Health

We continue to send 48-50 kits every month via MAC to Rwenzori Women for Health.  Rita, who runs the project, updated us following a recent distribution.

"The pads are distributed by Sister Merecy and Mr Joshua (a nurse lead for the project). The team has distributed in Busingo – a remote rural community that suffered devastating floods last year with loss of life. Women were using whatever rags they could find, or fibres from the bark of the banana trees – or nothing.  Sister Merecy reported:

“There will always be more need for pads.   Pachamama is providing pads and also the chance to get information on menstruation and sex education.”

Nurse Josh Colins reported: One of the ladies said:

“I can now move in public comfortably even when I’m menstruating."

In another distribution, the team supplied Harriet with pads. She is battling with stage four cervical cancer and hasn’t had access to any products.

Another group receiving the pads are fistula patients. A gynae team goes yearly to Kagando Hospital to carry out life-changing surgery.

In a message on our Facebook page, Rita said: “A huge thank you from me for all you do. Never for one minute think “is it all worth it?’.  You are making an incredible difference to women’s lives.”

Huge thanks also go to Kari who receives our pads from HQ and organises the monthly shipments.

Listen Africa Foundation

Those of you who have been following us for some time will already know of the amazing Arimumikonoye Dick, the teacher who founded ‘Listen Africa Foundation’, and is on a mission to end school girl drop outs in his region. Starting his journey by buying all the girls in his school reusable pads and seeing incredible results, he reached out to us and the rest is history. Through the end of 2025, we received almost daily updates from Arimumokonoye who, after renting a van and driving eight hours to Kampala to pick up our shipment, went school to school delivering menstrual health education and our reusable pads, including to schools that can't even be reached by car. All in all he delivered 12,000 pads to 1,500 students in 12 schools, two orphanages and a girls' sports academy- from the palpable excitement you can see in the videos and photos - you can only imagine what this will do to de-stigmatise menstruation for girls in this community and give them access to all the opportunities that come with being able to stay in school.

If that wasn't enough, Arimumokonoye also managed to achieve media coverage of the distributions (and issues) and has used the opportunity to call on the Ugandan government to provide period products to school girls.

Pass It On Trust Uganda

PIOTU are our longest standing partner in Uganda and continue to do incredible work, helping us reach new communities all over eastern and northern Uganda. In September the team reached rural villages Gweri, Aloet in Soroti as well as Amuria, distributing over 6000 reusable pads to teenagers and young mums, providing a long-term solution to their menstrual health challenges.

Hellen from Pass It On Trust said

“Together, we’re breaking barriers and keeping girls in school.”

Future shipments to Uganda

We are about to send a further 20,000+ pads – all packed and ready to go – to Pass It On Trust, Listen Africa Foundation and to a new partner for a trial - Women’s Relief Fund. This organisation works in Uganda in extremely impoverished areas.  They also work in South Sudan and we hope that, in the future, they will be able to support us to supply in this region.

USA

As can be imagined, it has been a particularly difficult time for our US partners Food Justice DMV who are working with mostly Hispanic migrants in the Washington DC area. Here is an update from Kate from Food Justice: "We are in an extremely challenging time in the capital region. The routines and safety of many of the families we serve has been disrupted and many are now hobbled in their ability to work, attend school, or be with their loved ones due to detentions and ongoing risks. Many people, regardless of citizenship status, feel threatened and have limited their movement. This dynamic is layered on top of the loss of more than 350,000 federal jobs in the past year.

We are happy to say that there has been an accompanying wave of support! Food Justice DMV quadrupled our volunteers to more than 900, and we increased our monthly home deliveries from 600 to 1200. Community leaders and volunteers deliver all kinds of support, including reusable pads, to families daily. The Pachamama pad program is key to our success because we spend $10,000 each WEEK on diapers, formula, medicines and menstrual products. Every bag of reusable pads reduces those costs immediately, and more importantly, it provides long-term security for the families who receive them. If there was ever a time to sew, the time is now! Thank you for your amazing solidarity with people in need." We are so grateful to our US-based volunteers who enable us to do this incredibly important work. If you have any friends who have been thinking of joining us in volunteering, they would be needed now more than ever.

Canada

We are delighted to welcome Nathalie as our new Canadian Pachamama ambassador - and to announce our new distribution partnership with The Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organisation (OCISO). Nathalie is based in Quebec and will receive all pads made in Canada, do the checking and feedback and send to the partner. OCISO directly serves about 10,000 immigrants and refugees every year. We are excited to grow our Candian volunteer base.

Australia

We have an exciting corporate sponsorship from Australian company, Clean Corp. Clean corp is a female-led industrial cleaning company that is on a mission to make access to sustainable menstrual products a given in workplaces. Through a partnership with femme-organic, they are signing up their clients to provide free, sustainable period products for their staff. Any profits made from the initiative will be donated to The Pachamama Project to help tackle global period poverty. You can read more about this fantastic initiative here. We have had lots of volunteer interest in Australia with many making pads and patiently holding onto them whilst we build an infrastructure to quality check and distribute them. If anyone is interested in a volunteer ambassador role or has links to organisations working with vulnerable populations in the region, please do get in touch.

New trials

Pakistan

We have just conducted a new trial in Pakistan with Shahida (who we have worked with before during out work with the Abasseen Foundation in Peshawar). She and a school teacher, Azra, who also worked with Abasseen in Pakistan, have carried out an initial trial in Bhadana, near Islamabad and have conducted needs assessments in Peshawar – both in schools.  The needs assessment clearly shows a dire need for our pads in Bhadana.  Shahida ran a fundraiser and used the funds to provide detergent and underwear along with our pads – and repaired the school toilets which were broken and unusable. Without wifi or any access to a screen, Shahida went back to basics and delivered a verbal workshop, teaching the girls about the menstrual cycle and puberty. She is back in Bhadana over the next few weeks and will be collecting feedback before we role out larger distributions.

Shahida’s report:

After quite a few months of planning and a great partnership with Ella Lambert CEO from The Pachamama Project and Azra Bibi, we were  able to successfully transport  over 300 Pacha Pads to Pakistan last month.  A Pachamama needs assessment  was carried out,  then a menstrual health management training workshop was delivered to the girls and teachers at Bhadana School in Pakistan and  over 60 girls received the Pacha Pads and hygiene kits. Excellent feedback and requests for more support to keep more girls in school next year. Thank you  to everyone at Pachamama  from all the girls at Bhadana School in Pakistan. Great feedback on the pads!! The girls love them!! 👏🏼 36 girls completed the  needs assessment which showed 75% of the girls used clothes each month for their periods and over half  of them only had one pair of underwear to use each month. These pads/hygiene packs  instantly improved their lives and gave them so much confidence to manage their periods and attend school. Thank you to all of you 🥰

UK:

Following extremely successful trial distributions across foodbanks and community centres in Manchester, Birmingham, London and Essex as well as Shelter's centre in Sheffield and with an overall 83% positive response to the pads, we are excited to gear things up with our partners, Global Relief Trust Code Red campaign in 2026. The campaign is a response to new girl guiding research which showed that 1 in 5 girls have struggled to afford period products in the UK. Where we have always endeavoured to support communities locally when needs arise, we are being intentional in 2026 to be part of a solution in what are, for many, challenging financial times.

Social entrepreneurship programme

Ella has now launched the pilot at New Hall School in Essex with a group of enthusiastic students and it will run for a year before plans for a wider roll out, first regionally and then nationally.  The programme will provide the students with an opportunity to run a mini Pachamama within their schools.  As we previously reported, the objectives are to raise the profile and destigmatise menstruation among young people, to create a regular source of pads to help us increase our stocks and to provide students with opportunities to take on roles that will give them a taste of social entrepreneurship.

Integration group

After a successful pilot, we are now delighted to say that we have secured some National Lottery funding for our Community Integration Sewing Club in Chelmsford, where locals and asylum-seekers come together every week to make pads, drink tea, laugh a lot, and make friends.  We are also talking to Migrant Help, an NGO working in the South East to support refugees and asylum seekers, about working with them to set up further integration programmes over the next three years, using the Chelmsford group model.

Huge thanks, as always, to Ruth, Helen and Jo who run the club and to The Art Place for hosting.

Other funding news!

We are also pleased to announce we have been chosen as a Fore grantee, an organisation supporting grassroots charities who have the potential to have transformational impact.

We are also now set up to receive monthly donations. We're hyper aware that so many of you already support us in so many ways by giving your time, purchasing fabric and posting your pads across the country and sometimes even across seas.

If you are someone that can and would like to support us on a monthly basis, we are looking for 100 people to sign up to give just £10/month to cover our shipping costs in 2026.

Over the years we have become very good at being bare bones, getting hold of free fabric and working with wonderful people to have access to free storage. Sometimes the only thing holding us back from sending out a shipment is the shipping cost. If we can secure reliable funding for shipping it will make expanding to new communities when needs arise so much easier.

If you'd like to be part of our 100 club, please sign up here.

Thanks yous

Thanks, as always, to everyone involved, including our partners, our ambassadors, our funders, our trustees and our volunteers.  Special mentions go to the Dalia and Ramzi Foundation for funding much of our work in Lebanon, to Robbie and Heather and for new funding from The Harrington Foundation, The Fore and from the National Lottery - and to Big Yellow, County Linen and the Meadows – all businesses local to HQ that support us immeasurably. We have ambitious goals and, together, we are confident we can reach them.

OTHER NEWS

Pride of Essex Award

Ella is delighted to have won the Pride of Essex Award in the “Inspirational Youth Category” – which she accepted on behalf of everyone in the Pachamama family who make the work possible.

“Never Underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world”

Margaret Mead, US Anthropologist 1901-1978