Dozens of Black women in Philly gather weekly to sew reusable period pads for girls in Africa and beyond

It is a humble space, this center for an international health initiative that takes place from a concrete hilltop in North Philadelphia.

Fueled by Black women, sewing machines, and a mission, members of the Pan-African Sisterhood Health Initiative, or P.A.S.H.I., gather every Wednesday at the Ujima Friends Peace Center.

There, they make reusable, washable, cotton menstruation pads for girls and women in Africa and the Caribbean.

Somewhere between 25 to 35 Black women — joined by one white woman and one Black man — come together each week at the Black-led Quaker center.

“We don’t call it period poverty, we call it menstrual hygiene management,” Maisha Sullivan-Ongoza, one of the founders, said about the project. “We use 100% cotton fabric. We researched and found a commercial product called Zorb, a 100% compressed cotton that absorbs liquid that is seven to eight times its weight. Then we used a laminated cotton material as the water-resistant layer.”

The pads can be used for three years with proper care and washing. She said commercially packaged pads are used once and thrown away and can have negative health consequences for girls.

“I just love the impact it’s having. They’re not using something that’s unhealthy. They are not open to [sexual] predators taking advantage of them [in exchange for buying pads]. They have something so they can manage their periods with dignity.”

The Ujima Friends Peace Center is housed in a building that is part of a maze of other buildings with organizations providing social services at 17th and Lehigh.

One building houses the Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti Violence Network, or PAAN. Another building houses a recovery center for people battling drug addiction. Another agency helps people without homes. Also within and surrounding this concrete complex are two early-childhood learning centers, a church, and a hair salon.

In this season of Kwanzaa, it is worth noting that Sullivan-Ongoza led the group of artists who created an 11-foot kinara that went on display at Philadelphia City Hall for the first time last December.

However, she said the work of the people in P.A.S.H.I. embodies the spirit and principles of Kwanzaa every week of the year. Those seven principles are: Umoja (unity), Kujichagulia (self-determination), Ujima (collective work and responsibility), Ujamaa (cooperative economics of Kwanzaa), Nia (purpose), Kuumba (creativity), and Imani (faith).

“Every principle of Kwanzaa operates here,” she said. “We are self-determined. We do this without a budget. We make it happen. We are using our creativity and working collectively. We believe in each other and have faith in ourselves, and we have faith others are going to support us.”

She said people can support P.A.S.H.I. through the Ujima Friends Peace Center’s donation page, but must specify the gift is for P.A.S.H.I.

Just before Thanksgiving, Milele Sullivan, an educator, went to a closet filled with new winter hats and gloves for children. P.A.S.H.I. had collected the items to donate to the Great Family Gathering project that feeds Thanksgiving meals to thousands.

“We want people to know that we don’t just give to people in Africa, we help people here, too,” Sullivan said.

Last year, in November 2023, nine P.A.S.H.I. members traveled to Zimbabwe for an international conference on how artists can use their art for social transformation. Sullivan-Ongoza was the keynote speaker.

“I focused on self-sufficiency, because that’s how we started,” she said of her talk in Zimbabwe. “We started small, with no funding. Just goodwill. We became our own resource development. Our resources were our own good intentions.”

The group traveled around Zimbabwe for more than two weeks to teach women in several communities how to make reusable pads by hand, since many don’t have access to sewing machines.

P.A.S.H.I. is not interested in sending commercially produced pads like ones used in the United States because of the “forever chemicals” in them, Sullivan-Ongoza said.

“We started small, with no funding. Just goodwill.”

“The same chemical that’s in Pampers is inside a lot of disposable pads and tampons. We don’t know what those chemicals will do when they are that close to your reproduction system. Now, we have healthy, organic pads.”

She’s also worried about the environmental impact of commercially produced pads and tampons.

Already known as an artist, woodworker, quilt-maker, and jewelry designer, Sullivan-Ongoza added: “I’m an environmentalist, too.”

P.A.S.H.I. began in 2019, initially as a project of the Sankofa Artisans Guild, a group that includes quilt-makers, woodworkers, jewelry makers, and other artists and crafts people. Not all members of the guild are members of P.A.S.H.I., and not all P.A.S.H.I. volunteers are members of the guild.

The Sankofa Artisans Guild came to prominence in 2022, when members created quilts for a display at Philadelphia City Hall called Dreams of Freedom, to honor the 200th anniversary of Harriet Tubman’s birth.

For years, Sullivan-Ongoza said, the guild took on a social justice project each year. As part of that mission, the group always brought or sent school supplies to a school in The Gambia. In 2019, however, school administrators told them there was a special need for menstruation pads for the female students.

“They told us that that girls often missed school for days when they had their periods. And if they stained their clothing while at school, they were teased and bullied,” Sullivan-Ongoza said.

Some girls are victims of men who prey on them by offering to buy them commercially produced pads in exchange for sex, she said.

In September 2019, a 14-year-old girl in Kenya committed suicide after being “period shamed” for staining her school uniform. That, Sullivan-Ongoza said, is when she knew she and the quilt-makers had to use their skills to sew reusable pads.

“At first, we thought it was going to be our social justice project for one year,” she said. “But the demand was so great. People were asking us to make them from all across the continent.”

Most of the volunteers are retired women. They are, or were, teachers, executives, nurses, health administrators, social workers, a medical doctor, an environmental professional, college professors, an accomplished poet, artists, and quilt-makers.

Gloria ”GG” Greer, 76, a retired Eastern Airlines software sales manager, is a quilt-maker who showed one of her quilts in the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza in September and is preparing for another quilt exhibit near Atlantic City that’s coming up soon.

One day, while Greer was sewing the pouches that will contain the pads, she noted that the women’s accomplishments extend to the next generation: “Both of my daughters are doctors.” One daughter is a university professor with a Ph.D. in political science; the other is a medical doctor and professor.

Pheralyn Dove, a Philadelphia poet, is also a regular volunteer. She has honed a career performing her poetry as “Lady Dove,” accompanying jazz musicians. But Dove’s volunteer work is part of a family affair. She and her sister Stephanie Dove, who drives from Wilmington, and a cousin, Dorotheia Hilton, who lives in Newark, Del., all volunteer together.

Jacki Wilkins, 69, is a retired sustainability program manager for the Massachusetts Port Authority. Her job was to make sure that operations at Logan International Airport and a number of seaport facilities did as little harm to the environment as possible.

“They are all my friends now, and it’s a really strong sisterhood.”

Wilkins earned a bachelor’s degree in geology at Lafayette College and worked toward a master’s in environmental studies at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell. After retiring in 2014, she moved to the Philadelphia area and began volunteering at P.A.S.H.I. two years ago.

Wilkins used to sew as a teenager and made her own prom dress.

“Once I learned they make pads for girls who need them, it was an opportunity to start sewing again. … It gives me purpose. It’s a way for me to do something that matters.”

Wilkins now comes to the Ujima center on Wednesdays and Thursdays. The Sankofa Artisans Guild meets there on Thursdays, and she is learning to make quilts.

“I look forward to it. It’s a very diverse group. Their stories are all very different. They are all my friends now, and it’s a really strong sisterhood.”

Gail Hoffman, a sales agent for New York Life Insurance for 40 years, found P.A.S.H.I. on Facebook while looking up information on reusable menstrual pads nearly two years ago. She has been volunteering ever since.

“When I realized there was a group of women who were making pads here in Philadelphia, I wanted to get involved,” said Hoffman, 72. “I felt welcome from day one.”

Hoffman is also project director for the Uganda Mission Project, part of a nonprofit called Faith Equals Work that travels to Uganda every February. The mission project repairs water pumps that provide clean water.

The Uganda project used to purchase menstrual pads that were made and sold in Uganda. Now, however, some of the Uganda project members come to P.A.S.H.I. at least every other Wednesday to help to sew the pads here and take them to Uganda every year.

The Uganda project members meet on Thursdays at a church in Germantown to sew “pillowcase dresses” for girls there. They now take the pads, along with the dresses, each year. Members of the group are returning to Uganda on Feb. 15, Hoffman said.

Some of the women who work with P.A.S.H.I. said they make it a point not to miss a Wednesday. Some won’t make doctor’s appointments that day.

They come because they believe in the mission. They also come for the sisterhood.

“I enjoy working with the women. They are great to be with,” said Lynda Black, a member of the Ujima Friends Peace Center. “They are extremely resourceful. I enjoy the camaraderie and also the mission. I enjoy supporting my community.”

Black, a fiber artist who had a show at an Old City art gallery earlier this year, is also a Leeway Foundation grant recipient. However, she does not sew at P.A.S.H.I. She operates an Accu-Quilt cutting machine that cuts fabrics into the various shapes used to make the pads.

Marilyn Lammert, a retired social worker, is the only white woman in the group who comes regularly. Lammert, 81, who has always sewed, said she saw an alert on Facebook in 2022 seeking donations of fabric.

“I had a lot of fabric laying around, so I decided to bring some,” she said. “I liked what was going on, and I asked if I could stay.” She has been volunteering ever since.

“I enjoy the camaraderie and also the mission. I enjoy supporting my community.”

Lammert, who grew up in St. Louis, is the daughter of a white minister who befriended a Black minister. The two sometimes preached at each other’s churches. When she was about 5 or 6 years old, in the late 1940s, her father dropped her and a white friend off at the Vacation Bible School organized by the Black church. They were the only two white children at the school.

Hoffman also said she comes for the camaraderie and the fellowship.

“We share things about our families. We share all kinds of information to help each other. We even share recipes.” The women usually bring potluck dishes to share with one another during their lunch break.

“It’s just a great place to be in your retirement. It is a value to get up and do something that is going to benefit and help somebody,” Hoffman said. “P.A.S.H.I. is a networking ground for so many other organizations that are doing good work in the world. A woman just left [recently] to go to Cuba.”

As they enter the Ujima offices, the women who sew take their machines — they are individually labeled with their names on them — down from shelves and set up at long tables to begin stitching.

There is quiet chatting; however, the mood is mostly businesslike. The socializing takes place when people share the dishes they brought for lunch.

For most of the day, each person has a specific role. Those who don’t sew have other tasks: Some cut fabric to make the “wings,” which are butterfly-shaped swaths of material onto which Zorb pads are stitched.

Others iron the completed wings before the pads are inserted. Some specialize in using a machine to fasten snaps onto the wings’ flaps so the entire pad can be folded into a 2-inch-square size that can be stored in a colorful pouch.

Some women only sew the small pouches that are made to store the pads. The pouches are cloth clutches that can be tucked away discretely in book bags or purses.

On one wall of the large room where the women sit in front of their sewing machines is a small, colorful map of Africa with pins in the different countries where P.A.S.H.I. has distributed pads.

There is also a small whiteboard that notes “Shipments Pending.” The list of pending shipments on a recent day included Benin and Cuba in November, Haiti and Ghana in December, Tanzania in January, and Uganda in February.

In addition, Philadelphia-born educators Tahiya Nyahuma and Mujahid Nyahuma operate a program called Healthlink International that brings pads to Senegal every year. This year, they left on Monday.

Other organizations and schools such as Sankofa Freedom Academy Charter and Imhotep Charter High School also take pads with them to Africa each year.

For the last three years or so, groups of Mandela Washington Fellows, who are young leaders in African countries who visit the United States every summer to study at U.S. universities for professional development, have also visited the P.A.S.H.I. workspace at the Ujima Friends Peace Center. The fellowship is a program of the U.S. government’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI).

Groups of about 25 fellows, ranging from 25 to 35 years of age, are housed at several universities or colleges for six weeks. They usually study professional development in one of three areas: business, civic engagement, or public management.

Over the past summer, two groups of Mandela Fellows, one from Drexel University and another from the University of Delaware, had separate sessions with P.A.S.H.I. members. The purpose was to teach the fellows how to make hand-sewn pads to replicate the process in their home countries.

One of the first Mandela Fellows who visited P.A.S.H.I. a couple of years ago has already started her own business producing reusable pads in her home country, Sullivan-Ongoza said.

When the fellows visited in July, they debated how to discuss menstruation hygiene, because the topic is not often discussed in mixed-gender gatherings.

Samuel Quansah, 29, of Ghana, said he was hesitant and uncomfortable discussing period hygiene management.

“I felt embarrassed,” Quansah said. “This was the first time I was in a space where I, as a man, was a part of this conversation.”

One of the Mandela Fellows who visited last summer returned in the fall.

Ayodele Ognin, 34, who is from Benin, took the certificate that P.A.S.H.I. gave all of the fellows who attended their one-day seminar and used it to apply for a Canadian fellowship. This allowed her to return to Philadelphia to study with the women for three weeks in November.

“She wrote to the foundation that if she could learn so much in her one day at P.A.S.H.I. during the summer, she was sure she could learn even more if she could return to spend more time with us,” Sullivan-Ogoza said.

The fellowship not only provided her airfare and lodging during her stay in November, but also provided money to buy a sewing machine to take back to Benin.

Ognin, who mainly speaks French and a bit of English, said she works for an organization in the city of Savè, Benin, that helps people learn financial literacy. She said she hoped to teach other women how to make pads.

Every year, Sankofa Freedom Academy Charter School and Imhotep Institute Charter High School send groups of six or seven students to P.A.S.H.I. to learn how to make the pads. Most of the students are girls, but sometimes boys come, too.

The students spend about six to eight weeks learning to make pads. When The Inquirer visited one week, girls from Sankofa Freedom Academy were in their second week of using sewing machines. Some had completed small pincushions.

By the next week, several of the girls had completed making pads.

“It’s very exciting” to work at the center, said Samantha Stevens, 13.

“I learned how to cooperate with others,” said Sariyah Burnett, 14. “It’s helpful to show sisterhood to each other.”

The girls often would take a pad they were working on to another room to show their stitchwork to “Mama Maisha.” Sullivan-Ongoza gave them words of advice on how to make a small snip in a pad so that it can be more easily turned inside out.

One Wednesday, as the girls waved goodbye to Sullivan-Ongoza and headed toward the door, “Mama Maisha” called them back into the workspace. They all went back in and came out again with empty water bottles that they placed in a recycling bin.