Meet Micro Grant Recipient, Darlene Clarke-okah in Nigeria
We are happy to announce the recipient of this month’s micro grant, Darlene Clarke-okah.
Darlene is a 29-year-old Nigerian social entrepreneur whose father is Nigerian and her mother is Liberian. She runs a business in Lagos, Nigeria called Femme Avenue.
Femme Avenue is a menstrual care company dedicated to ensuring every woman has access to affordable menstrual health care and menstrual education, while providing sanitary care products for those who cannot afford to get them for themselves. 50% of Femme Avenue’s profits go to providing menstrual care products to women in need.
In this interview, we learn more about how Darlene’s personal struggles with menstrual health inspired her to help others, and how she has created a dynamic and successful business model that gives back to the community while generating profits.
Tell us about your business, Femme Avenue.
Darlene: Femme Avenue is a social enterprise that operates on a 50% profit business model to be able to provide sanitary care products for young girls and women who cannot afford to get them for themselves, while also ensuring each girl or woman has access to affordable menstrual health care.
The brand sells menstrual educational cards for children – menstrual affirmation cards that have real life first time period stories with advice and affirmations and period care packages.
We also have a Femme Club for young girls in secondary schools, which provides a safe space for each child to learn, express herself, be heard and feel accepted. The Femme Club was created to have those difficult discussions that most parents shy away from, and to help young girls navigate the most confusing stage of growing up. The Club has come up with an excellent curriculum that covers all the intricate aspects of the lives of young girls.
The mission of the Club is to create a safe space in every school where young girls can feel safe to have a voice, be decision makers, develop their problem solving skills and become change agents in their various households and communities. And to eradicate all forms of myths surrounding the female gender.
Areas the Femme Club covers include: period health and hygiene; period difficulties; female body hygiene; sex education; public speaking; problem solving; critical thinking; teamwork; time management; adaptability; and communication.
Femme Avenue also has the Femme Tribe, which helps rehabilitate girls that have fallen by the wayside. It’s a menstrual care community. We are working to introduce the “ask a doctor feature” on our website to ensure every woman gets the help she needs for her period.
What inspired you to start Femme Avenue?
Darlene: I started Femme Avenue in November 2021.
I started my period at the age of 13, from a home of three girls. I was the only one to have painful periods (my sisters get discomforts now). I never understood why I was in so much pain – pain that left me debilitated, unable to function; pain that made me throw up, faint and most of the time end up in the hospital. It was confusing for my parents even as we sought answers.
Doctors didn’t make it easier for me, as I was told many times that my pain was in my head or I was faking it. I’ve grown up with this severe pain for years. I am now 29 and still haven’t gotten the right answers or treatment for my pain.
I knew I could not be the only one going through this, so I started Femme Avenue to help bring comfort to every girl navigating her period, especially the young ones who just started and are confused about the emotions and pain they are experiencing.
Femme Avenue was created to be a safe space for every woman and girl to talk about their struggles with their periods without fear of getting their pain dismissed, and to provide care packages so they can pamper themselves, get menstrual educational cards to help make talking to their children about menstruation fun, get menstrual affirmation cards with real life first time period stories, advice and affirmations to make them feel good about their periods, and now the ask a doctor feature on our website to make the process of seeking help easier.
I decided to give back to my community by dedicating 50% of my profit to fight period poverty and advocate for better menstrual health care for women in Nigeria as we currently have over 37 million women living with period poverty and young girls out of school due to the lack of sanitary products.
How will you use the $500 USD micro grant funds?
Darlene: The grant will be put into our new project called “the period bank.” It operates just as a food bank does, giving women and young girls access to clean sanitary products every month at no cost.
How has your African heritage impacted your work?
Darlene: My time in Liberia has a strong impact on why I started femme Avenue. I was in Liberia during the country’s last civil war and I saw firsthand how women suffer during the war time when it comes to their periods, and how they never have clean sanitary clothes to use.
Moving to Nigeria in 2003, things were a little different or I’d say better. Over time the poverty level in the country has worsened and things have become ridiculously expensive. I once witnessed a girl reuse a used pad because she couldn’t afford to get a new pack. That day I realized that period poverty was truly a serious problem for the nation and something had to be done.
How has your work positively impacted your culture + community, so far?
Darlene: So far, I’ve been able to provide 355 women and young girls with sanitary products, while also providing them comprehensive period education with my profit.
What message would you tell other women who dream of starting their own business, but are afraid to take the leap?
Darlene: Dare to dream and if your dreams don’t scare you then they are not big enough.
I started Femme Avenue a year before I quit my 9-5 to fully focus on the organization, and it has been a learning experience ever since.
My advice is to start, no matter how small. Just start. It is not always going to be rosie. There will be days that will be crap, and there will be days that will be crappier than those crap days, and there will be days that will be crappier than the crappier days… But in the end, you will get better days. As long as you’re doing what you love, you will enjoy the learning process and it will only make you better and stronger in so many ways.
So start and never take no for an answer.
