 So I'm part of a team who's spent the last two years dedicated to changing the lives of women and girls in Sierra Leone, West Africa. We're focused on a single issue, and we believe we've discovered a product that will change how 1.6 million women live, work, and are educated. One simple product that can improve health, increase productivity, enhance grades at school, and generate income. And you might be wondering what kind of super product we've discovered. Well, the answer might surprise you. It's a sanitary pad. Just a plain old sanitary pad. Two years ago, I was traveling through East and West Africa on a research trip. And while I was there, I met a young girl called Brenda. Brenda was 15 years old, and she was an orphan. And she was living in a tiny shack in Kampala with her grandmother and younger sister. A few days before I was due to leave Uganda, Brenda approached me and asked me if I could buy her a packet of sanitary pads. And I said no, because I was leaving the country and I wasn't going to be there to keep buying them for her every month. I couldn't believe it when Brenda said to me, oh, but I spoke to my school nurse and she told me that if I don't have sanitary pads, I'll get sick, and one day I might even get cancer. I just went, pfft, rubbish, you know? I'm sure whatever you're using now is fine. Don't even worry about it. But it turns out I was wrong. I went back to my hostel and started doing some research. And I discovered that poor menstrual hygiene has a whole variety of health issues, and it's a huge issue for millions of women and girls across the developing world. Brenda wasn't the only one at risk. I wanted to find out more, so we decided to conduct some surveys of our own in Sierra Leone. We interviewed 500 women and girls across five different communities, and what we discovered shocked us. We heard stories from women who were using kitchen sponges to manage their period. They were using newspaper, tree bark, toilet paper, layers of underwear, and most commonly, they used things like t-shirts or sarongs, which is usually old clothes, and they call these materials their pieces. The pieces were causing rashes and bruising on the inside of their thighs, and the women shared with us their shame about having to wash their pieces in public laundry areas and then dry them inside their home in front of their husbands. The pieces are hung in damp corners of the home where they don't quite dry fully and they just become a breeding ground for bacteria. The girls we spoke to had an added problem. Every time they had their period, they were missing out on school. A lot of the girls had experiences where they'd stay in the back of their school dress and they didn't want to risk humiliation a second time. Some girls were missing out on up to one week of school every single month. Their grades were dropping and they were falling behind in class. So, in Sierra Leone, a packet of sanitary pads cost anywhere between $1.20 and $9. The women and girls we were speaking with, they earn less than $2 a day. So for the women out there, can you imagine spending a full day's wages on sanitary pads? We decided enough was enough. We were gonna do something about it. So we created Launchpad, a social enterprise. Thank you. Thank you. A social enterprise that will deliver affordable, bi-degradable sanitary pads to women and girls in Sierra Leone, using a network of local female entrepreneurs and existing healthcare systems. Our sanitary pads are available for 70 cents per packet, which is up to 90% cheaper than other pads that are available on the market. We had to be really careful to source a product based on the needs of the women, the cultural taboos, and the environment which they were living in. So, pretty early on, we decided against using reusable sanitary pads. They were still gonna require washing in public areas and drying inside the home. We had to avoid reusable cups and tampons. 90% of the women and girls in Sierra Leone are circumcised, so these wouldn't be culturally acceptable. So that left us with just a plain old sanitary pad. But the communities we're working in don't have an established sanitation system. So we needed a bi-degradable pad, and that's where we began. We sourced a bi-degradable pad made from papyrus leaves. But then we encountered another problem. Out of the 500 women and girls that we'd spoken to, only 10 of them had heard of a sanitary pad, and only one woman had ever used one. So we needed to do a trial. And we started by running five health workshops in these communities to raise awareness about menstrual hygiene and sanitary pads. And secondly, we wanted to see if we would find just 30 women who'd be willing to pay 70 cents to purchase a packet of pads. And to tell you the truth, we were pretty worried about finding those first 30 women. But we didn't have to worry. We were blown away with the response. 147 women signed up to participate in the trial, and it was a complete success. 100% of the women said they preferred using pads over old cloth, and they told us that they want more pads. To reach 1.6 million women and girls in Sierra Leone, we're using a two-prong delivery method. So firstly, we're training local women to start their own sanitary pad business. And we called these women our launch pad champions. And this is Mariatsu Kuroma, and she's one of our first and most successful launch pad champions. She's received basic health and hygiene training, financial literacy, and marketing training. Mariatsu is responsible for educating her community about good menstrual health. When she sells 100 packets of sanitary pads in a month, she'll earn herself $10, which will increase her monthly income by 25%. Secondly, we're partnering with established on-profit organizations and medical clinics and leveraging their existing networks so we can make sure that pads are available across the country. Our mission is that every woman and girl in Sierra Leone can access affordable, biodegradable sanitary products in the next six years. For us in the Western world, it's really easy to take a sanitary pad for granted. It's just a routine part of our lives. But for women and girls in Sierra Leone, it can give them back their quality of life. It can improve their health, it can increase self-esteem, it can generate income, and it can keep girls in school. Who knew that a sanitary pad had the power to change the world? Thank you.