Students making Herbal Soap & Jelly to improve health, hygiene and generate income

URF staff with Hope Academy students have started making herbal soap and jelly as a strategy to become self-reliant and reduce the dependency on donor funding. The main objective of this project is three-fold:

1. to generate income using local resources to produce a product with a local market.;
2. to act as a means of improving hygiene of the students at Hope Integrated Academy and  the families in the surrounding community. Some families are very poor and struggle to afford soap and results in rapid spread of germs causing ill health for families. Some schools don’t have soap at the latrines which exposes the kids to the danger of contracting diseases. Soap production will be integrated in our on-going health talks we conduct in schools which involves teaching kids the importance of washing hands after using the latrine.
3. to provide employable skills to our students and local youth in soap production and marketing.

The herbal soap and jelly are ideal for healing skin diseases such as: acne, pimples, ring worms, psoriasis, skin rush, scabies, etc. 

After initial start-up funding the business shall be self-sustaining and the revenue will help to facilitate the day- today operation of the URF’s educational and community outreach activities. This venture has also created employment opportunities for some youth.  The soap is sold in local markets, in the villages, and at various schools.

Many thanks go to Antonia and family (UK), the St Catherine’s British School students (Greece) and Judy (USA) for raising initial funds for starting this venture.

Funding support is still needed to boost production so we can reach a wider market base. The demand is very high and our current production does not meet that demand. Any financial support will be greatly appreciated.