Shelley & Helmy's Ethiopia Trip 2024: The WRAPS Cafe

More from Shelley and Helmy’s trip diaries! We love to see them experience this wonderful place

WRAPS (washable, reusable, affordable pads) has grown from 5 employees - when we first started to support this incredible work - to now over 40! The WRAPS Cafe began over two years ago and it is thriving!

The Cafe employs women who have been in very vulnerable situations. Many of the women attend school in the evenings, with some starting in the lower grades (since they did not have the chance to complete their education as children). We love women’s empowerment and WRAPS, through the leadership of Allison Karnes and the hard work of the women, has changed so many lives for the better.

Helmy and Shelley ate delicious food and drank fun beverages served at the WRAPS Cafe several times while they were in Soddo.

Shelley & Helmy's Ethiopia Trip 2024: Mother's Groups Meets WRAPS

Connecting the projects we support is always a thrill. Two of the staff from the WRAPS (washable reusable affordable pads) factory came to provide education to the Mothers Groups and their daughters in Girls Gotta Run about the menstrual cycle, how to care for reusable pads, what is healthy and what needs medical attention and how to protect yourself against sexual assault. Helmy and Shelley observed the session and were so impressed to see how the women and girls were taking in the information.

The value of education can never be overstated. Helmy and Shelley were touched when one of the women talked about how she and some other women stood up against a man who touched a young girl inappropriately. She told the other mothers they needed to be aware of the safety of all girls in their communities and to protect them. Mothers coming together to form a supportive community … we love it!!

Pictured here is Shelley bringing a message of love and support from Canada, Helmy (third from left) watching the presentation with the girls and mothers, and two WRAPS staff presenting on reusable pads and the human body.

Wonderful WRAPS: Meet Tawabech

She was only a teenager when she became the sole breadwinner in her family.

Then, she went back to school.  She was in Grade 2.

Think strength, resilience, fortitude.

That’s Tawabech.

Tawabech, a student and worker at the WRAPS (washable, reusable, affordable pads) project in Soddo, Ethiopia.

Now 22 years old, Tawabech works full-time sewing reusable pads at a Soddo non-profit. She’s still supporting her family, including her mother and three brothers. Her father left the family years ago.

But she’s unstoppable.

Taking classes at night, she’s worked her way into high school. She’s completing Grade 9 and will soon be heading into Grade 10.

“I dropped out of school because we lived in the countryside. My mom was not able to work and we lived so far away,” Tawabech, one of the earliest workers at WRAPS, a program to provide rural Ethiopian girls with washable, reusable, affordable pads.

The product – carefully created in a multi-step assembly line at a Soddo facility – helps keep young women in school when they have their periods, instead of isolated at home using rags or leaves each month.

Joyful is right! These ladies can sure make you LAUGH!

Tawabech has been working there for 5 years. That’s the same amount of time she’s been attending night school to continue her education.

“It has been difficult. I’m not only going to school, I’m also carrying the responsibility for the family,” she said.

The young woman saved up her salary from WRAPS to buy a roof for her mother’s home.

And despite the hardship, Tawabech has a positive outlook.

Allison Karnes, the founder of WRAPS, said she knew Tawabech would be the perfect employee. In fact, she was the very first.

“I wanted people around me that were joyful,” Allison said.