Practicing Umoja / Unity In Support Of The Most Important Task
Copyright © 2024 / Harold Shujaa Baker / All rights reserved
“Umoja / Unity – To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and worldwide African community.”
The most meaningful examples of Umoja / Unity happens when people come together to protect human life or to help make life possible in the first place. Since nothing matters more in the process of creating human life than a woman’s womb, acts of unity to promote women’s womb health are among the most meaningful acts people can undertake.
Access to menstrual hygiene products is essential for women to complete the most important task of creating and sustaining human life. Here in America, it’s easy to take this access for granted – even as some women struggle with related costs. But in some African countries, and other places, barriers to these products exist that limit girls’ access to education while creating a range of other disadvantages.
Longtime Philadelphia, PA mixed-media artist and community leader, Maisha Ongoza, noticed this during her trips across Africa, so she decided to do something about it. In 2019, Mama Maisha – as she is respectfully known - teamed up with the women of the Sankofa Artisans Guild as they looked for a new project to apply their sewing and craft making skills – and the Pan African Sisterhood Health Initiative (PASHI) was born.
PASHI is a group of socially and culturally conscious Black women elders who practice Umoja / Unity in service to their community and beyond in distinctly creative ways. They meet weekly at the Ujima Friends Peace Center where they teach middle and high school girls how to make reusable, environmentally friendly menstrual pads, underwear, masks, and a pouch to carry them in.
To directly assist in meeting needs during the actual birthing process, the creative team at PASHI also make birthing pads and bags to promote sanitary practices and increase positive outcomes in maternity ward settings. Mama Maisha and the women of PASHI have created a highly dynamic and traditional environment where elder women gladly share their crafting expertise, life wisdom, and good recipes with young girls who receive it with the love intended. There is never an unused sewing machine in the room.
Once completed, PASHI packages their items in bulk quantities up to 1,000 pieces and have made successful deliveries to several African countries and beyond including – Southern Sudan, Ghana, Liberia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Gambia, Madagascar, South Africa, Tanzania, Cuba, and soon, Gaza, among other places. They provide the same support to women in need in the Tri-State area around Philly.
Besides sharing these essential items beautifully crafted from fabrics often reflecting the African culture and traditions that inform their efforts, PASHI also teaches women in the areas they serve how to create their own reusable pads. In fact, several women trained by PASHI have started successful local businesses making reusable pads and teaching other women to do the same, further extending the reach of this heartwarming project that effectively demonstrates Umoja / Unity and all the other principles at the same time.
The PASHI motto speaks to the fundamental mission of their activities – “Supporting Human Dignity One Reusable Pad at a Time.” The unity and collective work done by the committed and talented women of PASHI helps to remind us of the divine nature of women, and the meaningful, life sustaining, and unparalleled work they accomplish and inspire when following the best of our ancestor’s teachings and working in harmony.
For more information, you can find the Pan-African Sisterhood Health Initiative (P.A.S.H.I.) on social media, or visit the Ujima Friends Peace Center website at – www.ujimafriends.org
Fabric and monetary donations can be sent to: Africa 2012, 6082 Drexel Rd., Philadelphia, PA 19131
