Amanda Alexander first encountered the term “menstrual poverty” while working on a film set in 2015. The phrase struck a chord, and after extensive research and a successful legal career in the UK, she pivoted to what she describes as a spiritual calling: restoring dignity to women and girls through access to sustainable menstrual products.
Her vehicle for change is Female Dignity Inc., which produces a line of LOVE products – eco-friendly pads and tampons made from bamboo, cotton, and soon, banana fibre. The banana-based products will be manufactured in Saint Lucia, capitalising on the country’s agriculture resources and honouring her heritage. Her parents were born in Saint Lucia.
In a conversation with St Lucia Times’ Keryn Nelson last week, Amanda spoke about the brand’s dual mission:
KN: Your work seems rooted in outreach. I know your parents were Saint Lucian, but why was it important to you to do this work here?
AA: I’m a mother of five adult children and I have nine grandchildren. For me, I’m now on a spiritual mission to restore female dignity, menstrual dignity. When I was five, I did come to Saint Lucia as a child and because I encountered some horrible, awful abuses, I vowed never to come back here again. However, having become a Christian and having love and forgiveness and seeing what women are going through on the island still to this day, I feel that I’m a walking testimony of God’s goodness. I felt it was where God was calling me to be – to look back to my heritage and to help rebuild the lives of vulnerable women.
KN: Can you tell us about some of the outreach work you’ve been doing in Saint Lucia?
AA: For the past three years I’ve been working with the women at the Bordelais Correctional Facility and donating some of my bamboo and cotton products there, as well as the Upton Gardens Girls Centre. Today I had the pleasure of visiting the Holy Family Children’s Home. I’m looking to partner with them also to provide these products.
KN: Curbing period poverty is already no small feat, why was it important to go the environmentally sustainable route?
AA: So upon doing a lot of research, I found that the majority of the products on the market contain chemicals, plastics and toxic materials and fragrances, which are not good for our health whatsoever and are not good for the earth because of the length of time it takes for them to decompose. I thought if I was going to help end menstrual poverty, I did not want to compound the problem with another problem by donating products that are not good for our health anyway.
KN: Can you share the full scope of products currently under the LOVE brand?
AA: So at the moment under the brand we have the bamboo and the cotton sanitary pads and tampons. Bamboo is for heavier flows, cotton is for a lighter flow and we have cotton tampons which are regular. The banana fibre composite is made from the banana pseudostem – the banana tree trunk – and so we’re looking to open our manufacturing facility over here to manufacture the banana fibre version of LOVE sanitary pads. Later on we’re looking to extend into nappies and incontinence pads.
KN: The name LOVE is also quite intriguing, can you share why you went with that?
AA: It’s called LOVE because at that time of the month, I don’t know any woman who loves herself. We have that icky, horrible feeling, don’t we? But when you say “I’m going to buy a box of LOVE,” there’s something comforting about that. And you know, when you wear them, you don’t feel like you’re wearing anything because of the natural ingredients. It’s fully absorbent.
LOVE products have been stocked at CPJ, Massy and Healing Foods Inc.
Looking ahead, Amanda hopes to rally local women behind the cause. Her next step? Forming a high-profile coalition, The Women of Saint Lucia, to join what she calls a “crusade” to help end menstrual poverty not just in Saint Lucia, but across the Caribbean, the UK, and the US. “This is a global problem,” she says, “and we can start solving it right here.”
