Share It Forward with o.b. to Help Provide Sanitary Pads to Girls in Developing Countries

Today, I am proud to bring you a blog post about a new program, Share It Forward, that the o.b.® brand is sponsoring on Facebook. The Share-It-Forward program takes the power of your Facebook account and transforms it and our collective sharing of Share-It-Forward into life-altering change for adolescent girls in developing countries. Let me explain further.

About Share-It-Forward:

The o.b.® Share It Forward program is a Facebook application that allows you and your friends to help o.b.® raise money for Huru® International by sharing a message with your network of friends about Huru® International’s mission. Your share will help inform your friends and family about an issue that impacts many woman globally.    

What Issue? 

The lack of affordable sanitary protection for adolescent girls in developing countries. 

When young girls are unable to buy sanitary pads, many are embarrassed and skip school during their periods. Over the course of a year, this means an average girl can end up missing up to one full month of class. These abscences lead to many girls falling behind in school and eventually abandoning school attendance altogether. When this occurs the girl is more likely to face poverty and disease, including potential HIV infection.

Some girls seek to avoid this fate but do so by engaging in unsafe and unsanitary behaviors such as improvising pad materials and finding and reusing pads - a bad idea on many levels.

Huru® International attempts to prevent adolescent girls from becoming a victim in either of these scenarios.

What Does Huru do?

Huru® provides Huru® Kits to at-risk girls at no cost. Each of the Huru® Kits comes packaged in a drawstring bag that doubles as a backpack, and includes the following for the girl's use:

• Eight reusable sanitary pads
• Three pairs of underwear 
• Detergent-grade soap to wash the sanitary pads 
• A re-sealable, waterproof bag to safely store used sanitary pads 
• Educational insert focused on proper Huru® pad care and usage 
• Life-saving HIV/AIDS prevention

Thoughts from MiscMayzee:

I can barely begin to tell you how wonderful I think the o.b.® Share-It-Forward program and Huru® Intertaional are. The ability to go about your period days without worrying about blood leakage and general embarrassment is a true blessing and never more so than when you are at school. I can say this with a great degree of certainty, at least relative to my own thoughts and feelings.

While I never lived in extreme poverty, my mother never preemptively educated me about menstruation. Instead, I learned about it at school. When I started my period at age 12, I didn't feel comfortable telling my mom and gaining access to her feminine hygiene products since she had never educated me about my body. 

I made due for about 9 or 10 months before she found out, and I remember how self-conscious I felt without traditional hygienic products, particularly as my period flow picked up after the first couple. I can only imagine how bad girls from already struggling families feel knowing what is available but not being able to afford it and the stigma they must face in attending school without proper protection (which eventually leads to not showing up and so on as described above). 

Final Thought:

All young woman need to own every part of themselves - brain and body. We cannot expect young girls in developing countries to be well-educated when they cannot afford basic healthcare necessities and we cannot expect the body to remain healthy when the mind is not active and yearns to be.

Step-by-Step Directions for How You Can Help: 

Visit the o.b.® Outreach tab on www.facebook.com/mightysmall and click on the “share” button to re-post a message about Huru® International’s mission.  Posts can be shared, on your Wall, a friend’s Facebook wall, within a Group, or as a message. 

If you are not already a fan of the page...

1. Like the mighty.small.movement: http://www.facebook.com/obmightysmall (Facebook Page. If not on the tab already, click the o.b. Outreach Tab)
2. Select your state from the drop down box (under the green box) 
3. Put a check mark next to the box that says you've read the Terms & Conditions
4. Click the pink "Click to Share" button to post the message on your Wall
5. Spread the word!

If you are already a fan of the page...

1. Go to the o.b. Outreach Tab on the mighty.small.movement Facebook Page, or click this link: http://on.fb.me/oeX3gi
2. Select your state from the drop down box (under the green box) 
3. Put a check mark next to the box that says you've read the Terms & Conditions
4. Click the pink "Click to Share" button to post the message on your Wall
5. Spread the word!

Just the Facts Please:

Wondering how the money for individual "shares" will add up? The Share-It-Forward page outlines the facts for you:

The o.b.® Brand hopes that o.b.® Users and like-minded women will help raise $25,000 for Huru® International, which translates into 1,000 Huru®  Kits (or 8,000 reusable sanitary pads) valued at $25 each. For every user who shares the message about Huru® International’s mission with their network of friends, the o.b.® brand will donate $1 to Huru®.*

*The o.b.® Brand will make a minimum donation of $10,000 to Huru® International, and an additional $1 per consumer who shares the message about Huru®, up to $25,000. Donation not valid for consumers living in Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, and South Carolina. Limited to one share per consumer.

I hope you join me in supporting this worthy cause!

Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of o.b. and received a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate. 

Mom Central Consulting web-site: www.momcentral.com/mcc