Women’s economic empowerment and empowerment at large can be achieved by targeting initiatives to expanding women’s socio-economic opportunity; strengthen their legal status and rights; and ensure their voice, inclusion and participation in economic decision-making. A host of studies suggest that putting earnings in women’s hands is the intelligent thing to do to speed up development and the process of overcoming poverty. Women usually reinvest a much higher portion in their families and communities than men, spreading wealth beyond themselves. This could be one reason why countries with greater gender equality tend to have lower poverty rates. Biological differences between women and men do not change. But the social roles that they are required to play vary from one society to another and at different periods in history.

Women’s empowerment is essential for achieving gender equality and includes four main components integral to women’s physical and emotional well-being, these are also fundamental if women are to achieve equal political, economic, social and cultural rights.

1. The right to have the power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home. This component endows women with the freedom to pursue employment and maintain an income.
2. The right to have access to opportunities and resources. This component enables women to increase financial and non-financial assets and resources, including savings, land, business acquisitions, food, medical care and family planning needs.
3. The right to have and to determine choices. This component is critical to women’s choices within the household and marriage, including choices on the use of earnings, justification in refusing sexual intercourse and decisions about how many children to have.
4. A sense of self-worth. This component is relevant to domestic violence and the development of confidence within both the home and the society.

While one should not assume that all women want to work, it is safe to say that women want to be given the same freedom as men to choose work if they want to; and if they choose to work, they should have the same chance of finding decent jobs as men.

A female teacher who also received the menstrual kit confirmed that she now attends classes more often and teaches her students with more confidence. In the health clubs, girls are taught science and technology, how to make the kits, soap making and boys are taught how to make tippy taps (improvised taps) for hand washing.

When girls and women in rural communities are learning tailoring and soap making, it exposes them to basic science and mathematical principles, understanding measurements and proportions and also engineering principles and properties of machines further enhances their technological abilities. In a region where less than 2% of women and girls have had any education, this is a huge step towards learning to read and write. This new experience is life changing and gives them a sense of independence and the income from the sale of the kits helps them to tackle poverty in their homes.