This is a piece written by one of our ambassadors, Jane. She runs a Red Tent womens group and uses some of that group time to talk about and demonstrate our pads. There are a number of ways to get involved as an ambassador for Eco Femme and we are so grateful to Jane for her enthusiasm and dedication. We will also be hearing more from her in some future blog posts.
Hi I’m Jane! Thanks for the opportunity to introduce myself! I am so passionate about women’s health and menstruation issues. Having finally quit my non-inspiring ‘career job’, I feel more free than ever before – and I am having some wonderful thoughts about what I would like to contribute to the world, and how I can share what I understand and believe in.
Over the Winter I travelled to India where I met the wonderfully beautiful Eco Femme team for the first time. It blew my mind, the amount of information I learned (and the in’s and out’s of the Eco Femme project itself). The experience changed me in many ways and definitely strengthened my voice and gave me real conviction about getting the ‘Eco’ word out there for menstrual hygiene.
Before I travelled I graduated on an amazing course run by Alexandra Pope called ‘the way of the menstrual cycle’ about helping women to work with the energies of menstruation; to engage with the benefits of the cycle as well as perceived negativities. This learning consolidated my strong belief that all the taboos of this world related to menstruation shouldn’t be taboo, a normal and natural process should be seen as exactly that! I am very much excited about the prospect of running my own workshops one day, and guiding women through their own cycle work.
I also became a Miranda Gray moon mother in 2013 which gave me the wonderful gift of being able to give one-to-one Reiki-style healing treatments to women, in the form of Womb Healings and womb blessings.
In May 2013 I also started up a ‘Red Tent’ group open to the public here in North Wales. The vision was to create a space for women to come, to be
able to share and relax together and be supported by each other. It has recently been an incredible way for me to channel my newly-learned Eco Femme knowledge! The topic of May’s Tent was the WASH Menstrual Hygiene day (we actually met on the 28th). Last month it was about environmental issues, menstruation and of course the wonderful work of Eco Femme 🙂 It was a beautiful day, the sun shone, the birds sang and everyone loved the soft gentle energy of the day. I couldn’t stop smiling after everyone left as it felt like my first bit of ‘eco-activism’!! YEAH!!
Actually it was a little like ‘preaching to the converted’ on Saturday! I was overjoyed to hear at the beginning of the tent that one of the women had recently bought some cloth pads from Eco Femme after hearing about them last month. I really feel I am so lucky to have such a wonderful environmentally aware group of amazing women coming to the Red Tent.
It was great to be able to talk freely again, to a receptive group of interested people who care about the troubles countries like India have (without waste disposal systems), and about how long each disposable pad takes to decompose, OR how many plastic bags worth of plastic each disposable contains. I was able to share some information from the Eco Femme website (off memory as we had the tent outside in the back garden)! It was shared with the hope that the word would spread to all the other women that they know, and they know and they know etc etc. They were all so impressed by what Eco Femme do and loved handling the samples of the pads that I showed them.
So in a nutshell, that’s a little about me and the work that I do (and want to do). It feels great to be a part of such a great collective and network of women in the Eco Femme family. I believe in the power of community and people working together, and of shared inspiration and light. Namaste!
For more information on the Red Tent Women’s Project visit: http://www.redtentwomensproject.org/ and if you would like to become an ambassador for Eco Femme then please feel free to contact laura@ecofemme.org