Dear friends and supporters,

our campaign here has come to an end and we are eternally thankful to each and every one of you! You might be wondering what we are doing now, as we only reached about 40% of our designated goal (including our offline donations). Don't worry! We are doing this project with the money we have. Yes, we were hoping to do more, but we will work with what we got. Help is needed now and not in months. Also we were able to reduce some costs and received several cups donated directly, that are just as valuable to us.

I will fly to Abuja tomorrow, and on Saturday, which is also "Menstrual Hygiene Day", we will visit the camp of Kochingoro for the first time. We will inform the women about the cups and women's health, how to use them and what to expect of them, to find out, how many of the women want one and which sizes we'll need. Then we can buy the needed cups directly from "Luv Ur Body" and return to the camp to hand them out and teach about proper use and hygiene.There will also be time to discuss any other topics around women's health.

I am very happy to have gained the support of Dr. Maria Hengstberger and her organization "Aktion Regen", who offered me educational material and when I'll be back in Vienna we will certainly continue to work together. Her aim is to support women in developing countries with education and knowledge about family planning, contraception and women's health in general, and she's working on this sucessfully for many years now.

http://www.aktionregen.at/

I also thank the lovely women of the women's rights group of Amnesty International in Vienna, who offered me support and initiated contact to "Aktion Regen", and I can't wait to work with you ladies again and further on.

I would also like to say a big thank you to the Tree Sisters Community I found on social media - and can you believe that: Out of the countless pages, websites and organizations I contacted to ask if they would share our project, they were the ONLY one who did! Even those who promised first to do so, too, backed out and were never heard of again. Honestly I am disappointed and was hoping that women's rights groups and - advocates and feminists would be more supportive of each other. Well, we did it without them, but with YOUR help, for which we are so grateful!

I would also like to thank the "Menstruationstasse" group on Facebook, who offered so much support! Many of you donated or sent me cups, and you kept me going with your nice and supportive words! And of course I want to thank each and every one of you who donated so generously and believe in this cause!

And of course we are thanking YOU! Without you we wouldn't be able to do this! We thank each and every individual who supported us with donations so generously, you all have a place in our hearts eternally <3 You are the center of this, and you are showing: We all can achieve something if we work together for a change to the better.

Ifeanyi and I are also thinking about writing a little book or series of articles about our experiences with this project, the hard work (I often felt like having two full-time jobs), the disappointments, the empty promises, the little mental breakdowns, even the end of a friendship - but mostly about the overwhelming love and support! I have never organized something like this campaign before and I am grateful for all the experiences I gained and will now gain when finally doing what we aimed for: Going where help is needed and doing what we can there.

We will keep you updated! If you want, head over to our Facebook page where we hopefully can post updates about the camp very soon (if the Nigerian internet will let us :))

https://www.facebook.com/menstrualcupsfornigeria/

I will prepare for my trip to Abuja now (still haven't packed a thing) and I'll see you all soon!

Thank you for everything!

Yours,

Nadine