People, Roles and Capability Plan

Your Person and Their Unmet Need
You identified that Phelo, a 19-year-old matric candidate from a disadvantaged family, needs secure menstrual products she can afford because cheaper pads are insecure while expensive ones cause health risks like rashes and infections, as demonstrated by interviews where she described using cloth, toilet paper and rags instead.
Your People Ecosystem Map
The girl you're serving: Inner layer, uses and benefits from the product, needs parental approval to access it.
Her mother: Inner layer, pays for and approves use for schoolgirls, needs to understand the value proposition.
Her siblings: Inner layer, potential users and beneficiaries, needs not yet identified.
Her teachers: Middle layer, makes decisions about school pad provision and implementation, needs not yet identified.
School administrator: Middle layer, controls resources and sets rules for menstrual product access, needs not yet identified.
Her Netball team: Middle layer, peers and potential users, needs not yet identified but you have not yet spoken to them.
Her friends and classmates: Middle layer, users and beneficiaries, needs not yet identified.
Women as a group: Outer layer, benefit and use the product, pay for and approve their own use, needs not yet identified.
Other Ubuhle customers: Outer layer, implement the product in daily practice, needs not yet identified.
Your Ubuhle reusable pads mentor: Outer layer, could block the project entirely, and you have not yet spoken to them.
You have not identified what parents need in order to approve use beyond understanding value, or what teachers and school administrators need beyond the gap already noted.
Stakeholder Engagement Plan
Stakeholder and required relationshipWhat we need from them / what they need from usGirlsYou need their adoption of reusable pads and advocacy for the product. They need value, transparency, and better outcomes — specifically safe and secure sanitary products and money to combat period poverty.ParentsYou need their advocacy and knowledge to help distribute pads to learners. They need value, transparency, and better outcomes — specifically safe and secure sanitary products for their daughters, though they could lose a large sum of money as initial costs for a pad kit.TeachersYou need their advocacy and knowledge as a critical hand in reaching learners with pads. They need value, transparency, and better outcomes — specifically safe and secure sanitary products and support for their students' education, though they could lose a large sum of money as initial costs for a pad kit.Ubuhle reusable pads future supplierYou need their knowledge and partnership to run this business, as you do not have enough strength or skill to do it alone. You did not specify what they need from you.Your Team Charter
Your Team Charter**
Purpose: You aim to go to schools and pitch to teachers, learners and parents to educate them about your product.
People and perspectives: Teachers own schools and school facilities; parents own their girls. You have the capability to pitch to these groups, but you are missing school contacts and advocacy support.
Relationship ownership: You have not identified internal team members who own relationships with unemployed women, who are a priority stakeholder.
Roles and accountability: Your answer about who owns what does not clarify your own role or the roles of any team members you may have.
Decision-making: You will first pitch your product, then create a survey asking what challenges girls face because of periods, then ask whether they would use the product if you sold it to them.
Managing disagreement: You have not addressed how you will handle disagreement or raise concerns like "I think we're solving the wrong problem."
Potential friction points: You identified that if teachers disagree about giving you access to learners, this could lead to delay, but you have not set out how the team will navigate or prevent this.
Roles, Responsibilities and Relationship Owners
External relationshipWho on the team owns itParents of schoolgirlsNo owner yetSchoolgirls (users under 18)No owner yetWomen (adult users and purchasers)No owner yetTeachers and school gatekeepersNo owner yetReusable pads supplierNo owner yetUnemployed womenNo owner yetYour People Gaps and Project Pathway
You are treating the girls themselves as your primary customer, but the actual decision-makers are teachers and the school administrator—and you have not yet engaged with either about their unmet needs or what success looks like on their terms.
You overlooked unemployed women as a critical stakeholder, yet you identified them as having no internal owner on your team, which means this relationship exists nowhere in your project structure.
Your relationship with your Ubuhle reusable pads supplier remains unowned and undeveloped, despite recognizing they as someone you should be collaborating with to make decisions rather than simply informing.
You lack school contacts and advocacy—two capabilities you named as missing—and you have no documented process for resolving disagreement if teachers withhold access to learners, which you identified as a potential delay that could derail the entire project.
Your single greatest people risk is that teachers could refuse you access to the school and learners, and you currently have no relationship with them, no understanding of their specific incentives, and no plan for what happens if they say no.
Your immediate next step is to identify and meet with at least one teacher and one school administrator before you pitch anything, specifically to understand what they need from a solution to period poverty and whether they would even grant you access to their learners.