On 15 September, Les Puits du Désert took part in a conference organised by Shortee at the Cité Audacieuse in Paris, devoted to menstrual health, innovation and women's autonomy.
Far more is at stake in this question than access to a sanitary product. When a girl has no suitable way to manage her period, her schooling, her health and her independence can all suffer. That is precisely Shortee's purpose: to turn access to menstrual protection into a genuine lever of autonomy.
A year of experience in Agadez
The evening brought together health professionals, researchers, associations, technical partners and several organisations working against period poverty. For us, it was above all a chance to share what we have learned in Agadez, where we have been running a reusable period underwear workshop with NGO Tidène for the past year.
We were able to describe very concretely what has already been done: the first trials in Attri, the making of an initial hundred pairs, the testing of the designs by some thirty women and girls, the transfer of production to Agadez, the purchase of machines, the training of two seamstresses — and also the women's enthusiasm, the awareness sessions, the new workshop ideas now emerging, and above all the strong expectation surrounding this new product.
That is the experience we wanted to bring to the conference: what works, what still needs improving, and above all what the field is teaching us.
A network taking shape
The evening also confirmed how much there is to gain from working collectively. The Agadez workshop is part of the Shortee movement, alongside other workshops, cooperatives and associations, notably in Senegal and Kabul. The contexts differ widely, but the experiences speak to one another, the difficulties are shared, and solutions found in one country can inform thinking in another.
The outcome of this conference is therefore particularly encouraging: the project is moving forward, field experience already exists, and a real network is beginning to take shape around a single goal — enabling women and girls to have suitable, affordable protection produced as close as possible to their own realities.
After a year, our project is still young, but it is already very concrete. This conference marked a new stage: pooling our Agadez experience with that of other Shortee members to build solutions suited to each territory.
