Alison is 23. She lives in Edinburgh and founded Lilypads, a social enterprise which manufactures and sells reusable sanitary pads. Find out how she started her own business. Part of our Bitesize world of work series.
Alison:
I'm Alison, I'm 23, and I'm the founder of Lilypads. We manufacture reusable sanitary pads that you can use on your period, wash, and then reuse again the next month. This makes them really affordable but, also, they're all made out of natural materials.
I never thought I'd be running a business. At school, I took GCSE Geography and I loved it, mostly because I had a fantastic teacher. She used to give us scenarios that had happened, potentially a volcano erupted, and as a class we had to explain what we would do to help the people on the ground. I loved that way of thinking so I started off at university studying Geography and then realised that, actually, I was more in line with the Economics department so I swapped degrees from Geography to Economics.
My school had always been partnered with a charity in Kenya and I really wanted to go and visit them. One of the first things they asked me to do was help in their sexual health teaching. From there, I realised a lot of the girls weren't attending school because they couldn't afford sanitary products. Hearing that broke my heart.
So I went back to university - I still had a degree to finish -and thought, what could we do? We started making reusables and we sent them out and ran a trial and then this idea started to grow and we started to realise we could produce all the pads in Kenya and we could make it affordable as a social enterprise. So a social enterprise is a business, but with some form of social conscience.
We've got 32 women across Kenya producing pads and so it day-to-day involves seeing what support we can give them. I can go from creating our prototypes in the morning to sitting with a lawyer in the afternoon and talking about employment law.
Our UK side is holding lots of focus groups with young women, working out what they want out of our products. I spend a lot of time doing our accounts online. My GCSE ICT has really come in handy as well as my maths skills.
Looking into the future, I'm hoping we're going to have a large product range in the UK to fit every woman's different types of needs and that'll sponsor our work in Kenya so that all the girls have a route to remain in education and their period is not a barrier to that.
I never thought I'd be running a business!
- A trip to Kenya as a volunteer changed Alison's career path
- She learnt that many girls in rural communities have little to no access to sanitary products and were not taught about their menstrual cycles in school
- This has a big impact because some girls will miss school during their periods due to lack of sanitary products
- In response, Alison founded Lilypads, a social enterprise that manufactures and sells reusable sanitary pads and provides menstrual health education.
What to expect if you want to set up a social enterprise
Alison runs a social enterprise, that’s a business with a social or environmental mission. Lilypads reinvests money they make by selling their products back into the business; this is helping communities in Kenya and the UK.
Alison runs a social enterprise, that’s a business with a social or environmental mission. Lilypads reinvests money they make by selling their products back into the business; this is helping communities in Kenya and the UK.
If you want to set up a business that has social, charitable or community-based objectives, you can set up as a:
- limited company
- charity, or from 2013, [a charitable incorporated organisation]
- co-operative
- community interest company (CIC)
- sole trader or business partnership.
A community interest company (CIC) is a special kind of limited company which exists to benefit the community rather than private shareholders. To set up a CIC, you need to apply to Companies House. The CIC regulator has guidance on CICs, including the forms you need to set one up.
You can find more resources and examples of other social enterprises from Social Enterprise UK, Inspire2Enterprise and UnLtd.
Source: GOV.UK
This information is a guide and is constantly changing. Please check GOV.UK for the latest information.
For careers advice in all parts of the UK visit: National Careers Service (England), nidirect (Northern Ireland), My World of Work (Scotland) and Careers Wales (Wales).
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