Meet The Board

My name is Sanne Bolkenstein, chair of the AFRIpads Foundation. My first trip to Uganda was in 2009, together with my friend Laurens Buijs. Once there, we met Sonia and Pauls, the current CEO’s of AFRIpads Ltd. Their ideas inspired us from the start and we decided to do as much as we could to turn them into reality. After a successful pilot in 2009, I left Amsterdam to set up sales channels for AFRIpads in Uganda. After returning to the Netherlands in 2012, I have worked for the AFRIpads Foundation. I became chair of our enthusiastic group of people in 2014. Together we work hard to reach or goal: all girls to school, all days of the year! Next to AFRIpads, I work as sales and account manager at Byte, a webhosting company.

My name is Laurens Buijs, and I have been enchanted by AFRIpads since the moment the idea arose in Uganda in 2009. I have always considered it a great honor to do what I can to help AFRIpads to consolidate and expand. I have seen the enormous potential the business has: providing work for women, while supporting them with their everyday sanitary concerns in a way that is friendly for the environment. Also as a result of my work as a lecturer and researcher in the social sciences and gender studies (University of Amsterdam), I have become convinced that this is exactly what both developing and developed countries are in need of: more social space for women and femininity.

My name is Carina Bolkenstein-Bast, former teacher in business administration. My first awareness of the menstrual-related school absence in African countries came with my daughter’s phone call from Kampala in 2009. She convinced us the production of washable sanitarypads would be just the thing to keep Ugandan girls in school.  She asked us to do a social investment in a hand-driven sewingmachine and some fabric and so Sonia and Pauls started AFRIpads in a small village outside Masaka.  Soon after, we started the AFRIpads Foundation in Holland. There are still many girls in the remote areas that cannot afford to buy pads, not even the much cheaper in use washable AFRIpads, and I see it as our mission to provide our solution to them as well. Our aim: to keep all girls in school!

My name is CeesPieter Boender, born and living in Utrecht. I have a background in financial services at a Dutch banking company and asset management at a pensionfund. I was asked to join the board a few years ago. I passionately believe not only in the mission of AFRIpads – to keep girls at school – but also in the way it attempts to achieve it: by use of a business model. I am proud to be part of a project that accomplishes its social goals through a sustainable way, not only environmentally but also economically.

Hi! I am Nicoline Evers, an employment lawyer in an international law firm living in Amsterdam. Our chairman Sanne and I have known each other since childhood and in 2009 she returned from a trip in Uganda with a story of a problem I would have never thought existed. I was stunned by the fact that a large percentage of girls in Africa do not finish their school because of menstruation and very excited when she told me the idea Sonja and Pauls had to make a start of resolving the problem. I followed AFRIpads in their first years, from small start-up to reaching more and more girls with sanitary pads every day and I am very glad I can contribute to this.

My name is Hans Spaan and I am born in 1961. I have one daughter who is doing well at school and who had the opportunity to go to university. I am proud of her and I am confident she will have a prosperous future partly because of good education. Unfortunately, this not common all over the world. Girls in Uganda for example face practical barriers like menstruation that need to be overcome. This is not only sorry for these women, but also for the country. Being a supervisory board member in my professional life I experience the value of diversity for organisations. And after all, investing in education is investing in a country’s future economic power as well. By giving all women the opportunity to enjoy good education we provide not only a better future to them, but also to the organisations they will work for and the country they are part of.

My name is Cerise Kruize, and I am working as a volunteer for the AFRIpads Foundation since September 2014. Fundraising is my main task and on top of that I support the AFRIpads Foundation with various tasks. I work as a nurse and currently follow a course in tropical diseases. In 2009 I went to Africa for the first time, to work on a health project. The most important lesson I learned was that a health project doesn’t need to be big and complicated, but can be something relatively small and practical, as long as there is support from the local people. AFRIpads is a sustainable simple contribution to a higher quality of life for school-aged girls. I think that is the reason AFRIpads is successful in reaching its goals: it is a concept that speaks for itself.

My name is Eefje Notten and I am a volunteer for the AFRIpads Foundation since September 2014. I graduated in Cultural Anthropology and International Development Studies. During these two Masters topics that dealt with the African continent draw my special attention. In my role as Social Ambassador for IKEA, I promote the work of the IKEA Foundation to my colleagues in the store in Duiven. Already in that position, I learned that some girls do not have access to sanitary pads and they have to skip school days because of this. I was surprised that a seemingly simple discomfort for a school girl can have such an influence on her future life. When I got the opportunity to join the AFRIpads Foundation, I did not hesitate. I am proud to be part of the AFRIpads Foundation, and I fully support both its social and environmental goals.