Lunapads Blog

As regular readers will be aware, over the past decade Lunapads has been developing the Pads4Girls program to bring reusable feminine hygiene supply kits to thousands of girls and women in need in over 15 countries. Pads4Girls seeks to address an often-overlooked problem that hundreds of millions of girls and women in developing nations face: missing school or work for several days every month because they lack adequate menstrual hygiene supplies. You can learn more about the issue and its impact on our site here, and in the Pads4Girls section of our blog.

Trying to determine how to make a bigger impact with Pads4Girls from a distance only goes so far, and we feel called to learn more and go deeper. In January 2012 Suzanne and I will be traveling to Uganda with Shanti Uganda, a Vancouver-based charity that improves infant and maternal health, provides safe women-centered care and supports the well-being of birthing mothers and women living with HIV/AIDS in Uganda.

We are appealing to the Lunapads community to raise funds to enroll 300 teenage girls in Shanti Uganda’s At Risk Girls Program, a health and wellness program focused on inspiring futures for girls and teen mothers in Kasana Town Uganda. As part of the workshop, each girl will receive AFRIpads (Ugandan-made cloth pads based on Lunapads, see below for more information about them) and a health education manual.

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I had an awesome summer working at Lunapads as a Marketing and Info Tech Intern this summer. Last year I was very lucky to work for Lunapads on the “Ditch the Disposables” and “Pads4Girls” videos.  Getting to come back for a second summer was an unexpected treat that was made possible by Industry Canada’s Small Business Internship Program.  The program provides small business enterprises with grants to hire post-secondary students to assist them in adopting e-business strategies.

This summer has been very eventful at Lunapads. To start, I got to do a lot more than just making videos! Working in a smaller business allowed me to take on larger and more diverse projects than what a large corporation would have allowed. Rather than your stereotypical Intern tasks, I got to tap into many different parts of the business, from Customer Service to IT to Marketing.

I was able to really sharpen my Marketing and IT skills under the supervision of Lunapads Webmaster Lisa. Seeing how the company operates from its backend, using my skills in social media as well as creating a video marketing campaign has been such an invaluable learning experience.  Seeing the actual results of my efforts in the form of more YouTube Subscribers, more YouTube video views, blog responses and number of contest participants has also been very rewarding.

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To say that I was star-struck meeting Bitch Magazine founding Editor Andi Zeisler for the first time is a bit of an understatement. Although it continues to baffle me as to why, I realize that feminist media and cultural criticism is not everyone’s cup of tea. It’s definitely one of mine, though, and Andi is one of its most incisive proponents and voices. We were in Portland earlier this summer for the most excellent World Domination Summit and took the opportunity to stop by the magazine’s offices.

Lunapads has recently entered into a more wide-ranging and intentional relationship as “Ambassadors” with Bitch Media, Bitch magazine’s nonprofit parent organization, and as such are seeking to broaden support for their work within our community. With that in mind, please consider subscribing, advertising, donating, volunteering and/or just plain old spreading the good word!

Andi and I took a look at a couple of different areas where women’s health, consumer products and questionable media messages intersect: namely, some current ad campaigns for feminine hygiene products and hormonal birth control.

To hear Andi deconstruct the subtle-yet-insidious phoniness that underlies that UbyKotex campaign was particularly heartening to me, as it seems to have been well-received by many progressive women, who welcomed its message while leaving its products unquestioned. (Also see Suzanne’s post about how UbyKotex claims to have invented the notion of groovy-looking menstrual pads, an idea that Lunapads has been championing for almost 2 decades!)

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photo by pgpanic on flickr

“In 1973 I set out to do drawings of women’s genitals for use in sex education groups. I wanted the drawings to be lovely and informative, to give pleasure and affirmation. I organized the drawings into a coloring book because a major way we learn to understand the world, as children, is by coloring. As adults many of us still need to learn about our external sexual anatomy.” -Tee Corinne

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In January we were contacted by Page Pennell, Director of Haitian Support, an organization that runs a school in Bodarie, Haiti that currently has over 500 students enrolled in grades K-7. 100 of these students are girls of menstruating age who are unable to attend classes during their periods due to lack of supplies.

Thanks to donations from Lunapads customers, Pads4Girls was able to supply Haitian Support with a box of pads to take to the girls at Bodarie School.

Here’s what Page had to say about the distribution:
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Ladies Rock Camp Vancouver is a 3-day version of Girls Rock Camp Vancouver, which had its first session in summer 2009. Girls Rock Camp is an international non-profit organization that was created as a forum to help girls ages 8-18 build self-esteem through music creation and performance. But ladies want and need to rock too! At LRC Vancouver, ladies of all ages and skill levels will get a chance to do just that – they will form bands, write songs together, and perform their original songs at an amazing showcase. And the coolest part of all is that all the proceeds from LRC go toward providing food and supplies for Girls Rock Camp Vancouver.

Visit the GRCV website to learn more >>

As you may remember from a previous post a few weeks ago, we have been working in partnership with The Mariposa DR Foundation and The POWER project, a group of students from Seattle, to provide girls in the Dominican Republic with Pads4Girls Kits.

The 200 Kits arrived on April 6th! The Mariposas have posted a slew of gorgeous photos of the girls at the Puerto Cabarete school receiving the kits on their Facebook Page.

We are so proud and grateful for this incredible opportunity to support girls’ education. Thank you, Mariposas!

Related articles

• Our biggest Pads4Girls shipment! (lunapads.com)

Inspired by my courage to talk about lubes in my last post, I’m now going to talk about (are you ready?) orgasms! Yikes, what’s going on with me? Well, I think I am going to chalk it up to the new found freedom of hitting my forties and realizing that there are fewer sacred cows out there. Life is too short to worry about what other people think; I’ve come to realize that at this stage of my life it is more important to find ways to enjoy life, and, if I can, speak out for the benefit of women who are listening!

What has got me riled up lately is my interest in the new documentary Orgasm Inc.

“Extraordinary behind-the-scenes access reveals a drug company’s fevered race to develop the first FDA-approved Viagra for women – and offers a humorous but sobering look inside the cash-fueled pharmaceutical industry.” – Hot Docs Film Festival

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March 8, 2011 marks the hundredth anniversary of International Women’s Day (IWD). In keeping with our annual tradition, we are celebrating at Lunapads by offering 20% off everything on the site for 3 days as a thank you to all of our fabulous customers. While we’re at it, we are also going to be donating 1% of total sales to Pads4Girls during the sale.

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Today is an exciting day at Lunapads: we’re sending out our largest Pads4Girls shipment ever!

Pads4Girls is an in-house project where we sell cost-priced daily hygiene kits to customers and non-profit groups to give to women and girls in developing countries. It can be hard to imagine, but lacking something as everyday as panties, pads or tampons is preventing girls in many parts of the world from going to school. Girls can miss up to 20% of their education, which can spiral into earlier dropout, marriage and childbirth, increased chances of maternal mortality, reduced career choices and wages, and a less empowered life overall.

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