On Kaya Breakfast’s Big Moves, Lindiwe Nkuna-Kgopa explains why menstruation is an economy, and why she is helping the next woman
Katlego Sekhu
Menstruation is still treated as something to talk about behind closed doors. Yet the products women rely on every month sit at the centre of a large industry, and for years no woman in South Africa owned a large-scale sanitary pad factory.
Lindiwe Nkuna-Kgopa set out to change that. On Kaya Breakfast’s Big Moves segment, DJ Fresh and Thato Mataboge spoke to the woman behind Lindiwe Sanitary Pads, a business that started in her kitchen and now produces 800 SABS-compliant pads a minute at a plant in Centurion. This year, she won the Veuve Clicquot Bold Woman Award.
Menstruation is an economy
The spark came at a conference, where a speaker said that women did not own sanitary pad factories.
“Menstruation is not just blood as we take it as women,” she said. “Menstruation is an economy and men are playing in that space.”
She was not prepared to let the next generation hear the same thing. “It can’t be that 20 years down the line, my daughters are sitting in the same kind of arrangement, in the conference, and they’re hearing the same story.”
Unbankable, but not deterred
Early on, a funder told her she was unbankable. She had no brand, no profile and had never been inside a factory. Her answer in that meeting, she recalled, was that she would succeed. “The question is whether they are going to be part of the success story or not.”
Six or seven years later, she was ready to apply for funding to set up the factory. When cash flow problems followed, she invited executives from the IDC and her funder to see the plant for themselves. “Let’s have a conversation as human beings, come and see what I’ve done so far,” she told them.
The hardest part, she said, was having no blueprint. “I had never been an employee. Here I was now creating this thing and now I needed to create a working environment for people.”
Building for the next woman
Today she also helps women in 11 African countries with their own brands, rather than guarding the market for herself.
“It’s the burden of being the first,” she said. “If I can make it easier for the next woman, why not? I’ve paid the price.”
“I can never service every woman in the world or in Africa. So, there’s no need for me to be selfish.”
Her request to listeners was simple. Find Lindiwe Sanitary Pads on social media or online, and buy. “They must buy, not ask for donations.”
To hear the full conversation with Lindiwe Nkuna-Kgopa, listen to the Kaya Breakfast podcast.
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