Meet Kosmotive, one of the ventures from our Circular Economy Acceleration Program. Kosmotive is a social enterprise founded in 2014 that aims to improve Reproductive, Maternal, and Child Health in Rwanda and throughout Africa. Through their innovative products such as KosmoPads and their commitment to the circular economy, Kosmotive is creating a significant impact in their community. On this page, we will share the impact Kosmotive has made, the impact of our program, and their plan to scale their venture in the future. To learn more about Kosmotive and its work, please visit www.kosmotive.rw. 

Kosmotive is a social enterprise founded in 2014 to improve Reproductive, Maternal, and Child Health in Rwanda and throughout Africa. Our goals include providing access to menstrual, maternal, and child health information and products. Through Cosmos Magazine, KosmoHealth App, and Helpline, as well as empowering parents and girls through the Kadablah collection of maternity and nursing wear and KosmoPads reusable sanitary pads, Kosmotive aims to achieve those goals.

For all girls and women in Rwanda, who struggle to get adequate menstrual hygiene products, KosmoPads is the only cost-effective, eco-friendly menstrual hygiene solution, priced at $5. Women in Rwanda typically spend $2-3 per month on menstrual products. KosmoPads are reusable for 2 years, toxin-free, breathable, available in convenient places, and represent an incredible 88% savings over their use. They also come with an information platform to educate women and girls about menstrual and reproductive health. With KosmoPads, we create decent jobs for young women and girls in our factory.

Impact Hub Kigali’s Circular Economy Acceleration Program helped us leverage all aspects of the circular economy in our production, packaging, and distribution as well as enabling us to recycle our pads after use. Since then, Kosmotive has built a community around our product, which creates a continuous impact. We offer repeat customers new reusable pads at half price when they bring back their old pads at the end of their lifecycle, and we recycle them into other products to prevent them from being improperly disposed off.

We plan to raise funding for growing our production capacity to 20,000 pads per day, which will enable us to produce and distribute 15 million reusable sanitary pads over the next 3 years; thus preventing pollution from using 1.5 billion disposable pads, which is equivalent to the pollution from 6 billion plastic bags, or 3,600 tons of plastic. Over this period we will also recycle 200 tons of textile waste alongside used KosmoPads.

Stay tuned for more inspiring stories of social entrepreneurs in our community who are making a positive impact. We are excited to continue sharing the stories of our ventures and the impact they are making in Rwanda and beyond.