Solidaritu with Children with Disability initiative ( SCDI)

Solidarity with Children with Disabilities Initiative (SCDI) is a women- and youth-led Community-Based Organisation founded and based in Rarieda, Siaya County, Kenya. SCDI was established to address the unique, compounding challenges faced by children with disabilities, adolescent girls, and vulnerable youth in one of Kenya's most underserved regions. Our work sits at the intersection of menstrual health and hygiene, disability inclusion, girls' education, adolescent mental health and psychosocial support, gender equality, child protection, and environmental sustainability. We believe that the challenges facing our communities — period poverty, disability exclusion, school dropout, mental health stigma, gender inequality, and environmental degradation — are deeply interconnected. For this reason, SCDI implements integrated, community-driven solutions that address root causes rather than symptoms, empowering girls, engaging boys as allies, strengthening families, and building resilient communities from the ground up. Our flagship social enterprise, One Plastic, One Pad, is a circular economy innovation that repurposes plastic-based textile waste into KEBS-certified reusable sanitary pads — known as Nyadhi Pads. The name "Nyadhi" means pride in our local Dholuo language, reflecting our commitment to restoring dignity for every girl we serve. By transforming environmental waste into a dignified health product, we simultaneously address period poverty, reduce plastic waste, keep adolescent girls in school, and support their mental health and psychosocial wellbeing. Nyadhi Pads are certified by the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) — a significant achievement distinguishing us from informal producers and validating our commitment to safe, dignified menstrual health solutions. SCDI's programmes span multiple interconnected areas. Our Period Cake Initiative transforms menstrual health outreach into celebratory, confidence-building community events that challenge stigma and empower girls to embrace menstruation with pride. Our adolescent mental health pilot — presented as an oral presentation at the 16th EUSPR Conference in Berlin in 2025 — reached 500 adolescents in Rarieda Sub-County through peer support groups, family forums, and trained community health volunteers. Safe Circles: Voices Through Art uses drama, poetry, and storytelling to support child protection and mental health expression. Our Coaching Boys into Men programme engages boys as champions of gender equality, respectful relationships, and disability inclusion. We use KoboToolbox — a globally recognised digital data collection platform — to track school retention rates before and after Nyadhi Pad distribution across five schools in Siaya County, generating verifiable, data-driven evidence of our impact. We have repurposed three tonnes of plastic-based textile waste into Nyadhi Pads, with 1,825 pads currently ready for distribution. We are actively building connections across Kenya, Zambia, and Nigeria, with a vision to replicate our model across sub-Saharan Africa. SCDI is affiliated with GMHAN, Young WFPHA, GAIA, and GNDR. Our founder, Lyndah Christine Jakandang'o, is a postgraduate researcher at Liverpool John Moores University, UK, and has presented at the EUSPR Conference in Berlin, the World Health Innovation Forum in India, the Aga Khan University Education Conference, and the Women Achievers Africa Conference in Nigeria. Turning Waste into Dignity, Equity and Sustainability — one girl, one pad, one community at a time.