Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Alumni
  • Login
  • Volunteer
  • Clubs
  • Reunions
  • Bulletin
  • Class Notes
  • Help
  • Give Now
  • Stories
  • Alumni Directory
  • Lifelong Learning
  • Careers
  • Programs & Events
  • Giving
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Alumni→
  • Stories→

Stories

Stories

24 Apr 2014

SHE builds confidence, promotes education, and creates jobs

Re: Elizabeth Scharpf (MBA 2007)
Topics: Health-Health Care and TreatmentEntrepreneurship-Social EntrepreneurshipSociety-Human Needs
ShareBar

Elizabeth Scharpf (MBA/MPA 2007) founded a business that improves the health and hygiene of millions of women. But her goal is much bigger: empowering women by fostering entrepreneurship.

Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE) brings affordable sanitary pads to millions of women in developing countries, including Rwanda, where they miss up to 50 days of school or work per year because women lack access to these basic necessities.

Through her work at SHE, Scharpf has created the enterprise’s first initiative, SHE 28, a franchise model to manufacture and distribute low-cost, eco-friendly menstrual pads by sourcing local, inexpensive raw materials, such as banana fibers. Launched in Rwanda, the businesses are owned and operated by women and can be replicated wherever need exists.

The result is better health and hygiene for women, along with improved access to education and jobs. “Our mission is to invest in people and ideas that are typically overlooked—and often taboo—as vehicles of social and economic change.”

(Published April 2014)

Support the next generation of leaders Make a gift now
ShareBar

Featured Alumni

Elizabeth Scharpf
MBA 2007

Post a Comment

Featured Alumni

Elizabeth Scharpf
MBA 2007

Related Stories

    • 07 Dec 2022
    • HLTH Daily Show

    Putting Patients First

    Re: Javier Rodriguez (MBA 1998); Chitra Nawbatt (GMP 6)
    • 01 Dec 2022
    • HBS Alumni Bulletin

    Elevator Pitch: Common Knowledge

    Re: Matthew Ross (MBA 2022)
    • 01 Dec 2022
    • HBS Alumni Bulletin

    Road to Recovery

    Re: Eric Gastfriend (MBA 2015); Leslie K. John (James E. Burke Professor of Business Administration); By: April White
    • 06 Oct 2022
    • HBS Alumni News

    On the Road to Recovery

    Re: Alex Moreno (MBA 1988)

More Related Stories

Stories Featuring Elizabeth Scharpf

    • 01 Mar 2013
    • Alumni Stories

    Making Change

    Re: Elizabeth Scharpf (MBA 2007); Esther Wang (MBA 2009); Sidhant Jena (MBA 2011); Darren Brehm (MBA 2007); Rakhi Mehra (MBA 2009); Abby Falik (MBA 2008); Brian Elliot (MBA 2008); By: Margie Kelley
    • 21 Oct 2010
    • Alumni Stories

    D.I.Y. Foreign Aid

    Re: Elizabeth Scharpf (MBA 2007)
    • 01 Jun 2009
    • Alumni Stories

    The New “In” Crowd

    Re: Elizabeth Scharpf (MBA 2007); By: Roger Thompson
 
 
 
 
  • Explore
  • Explore
  • Explore
  • Explore
  • Explore
  • Explore
  • Explore
  • Explore
  • Explore
ǁ
Campus Map
External Relations
Harvard Business School
Teele Hall
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
Phone: 1.617.495.6890
Email: alumni+hbs.edu
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
  • Terms of Use
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College