Introducing the Nia Hug

It's winter in Kenya, and the ZanaAfrica programs office is chronically cold. Many of my colleagues keep electric heating pads at their desks to stay warm. This limits where they sit because the heating pads have to be plugged into the wall. 

I mentioned to two of my colleagues, Emmah and Zippy, that when I was growing up my family always used rice packs to stay warm and to ease aches and pains, including menstrual cramps. They hadn't heard of this, and we started talking about what one could look like here. A rice pack doesn't need an outlet, just a microwave. For people without access to a microwave, it could be "dry boiled," meaning heating it in a pan set over a pot of boiling water so the rice warms up without getting wet. What we don't want is cooked rice! 

My colleagues and I started to get really excited about this endeavor. This could be an expansion product for ZanaAfrica that helps girls and women manage menstrual pain. It could also be an FMEG (see my earlier post) if we sewed in a patch with the hotline and chatbot information. And to get girls excited about it, we could make it in bright colors. 

That night, I called my mom and we sketched out a design. We designed it to have two layers so the outer cover could be washed. We didn't want zippers or buttons on the outer cover that could melt if someone microwaved the whole thing, so we went with an envelope-style closure instead. For our first prototype, we kept it small enough to fit just over the lower abdomen.

The next day, my colleague Emmah and I went to a Maasai Market and picked out a thick, pink-patterned cotton. My colleague Beatrice recommended a tailor, and Emmah and I brought him the fabric, rice, and our design. He was confused about what we were asking for but three days later we had our first rice pack. We named it the Nia Hug to align with the ZanaAfrica brand. 

The Nia Hug was in heavy rotation around the office. It was so much fun collaborating with my colleagues, my mom, and a local business on a product that easily fits into the ZanaAfrica brand as another FMEG to help manage pain. What started as an office conversation turned into something creative and tangible.