The Beautywell Project

Beautywell young women's wellness and leadership cohortwe have done cohorts of The young women's wellness and leadership initiative (ywwli). Ywwli is to train young 1418-year-old east african young women and other young women of color to take The lead in their health and well-being, social-emotional well-being, gain policy and advocacy skills, and create social media advocacy campaigns to address skin-lightening practices, self-esteem and promote reproductive health and raise awareness on issues that are impacting their communities. Ywwli gives them a safe space to flourish, re-discover, and explore parts of their health and wellness that they have not yet tapped into due to social and economic limitations. Each cohort met weekly for 18 weeks and concluded with a final Project presentation and graduation ceremony. Ywwli includes one-on-one mentorship for young women and will provide sustainable mentorship once they complete The program. Also, The 2023 grant helped us improve quality and create comprehensive evaluation metrics.

Beautywell database and knowledge hubwe have developed The Beautywell Project database that addresses The problem of skin-lightening products, chemical exposures, and colorism in The cosmetics industry. This database contains skin-lightening products that Beautywell has tested in labs and identified to contain harmful ingredients that pose significant risk to individual and communities health. This will give individuals and communities to learn about this toxic skin-lightening and other cosmetics products that contain high levels of toxic chemicals. This will help individuals and communities to make informed decisions about their health and advocate for safer beauty practices and stricter regulations within The cosmetics industry. We also have developed a knowledge hub where we posting all The education materials including videos, infographics and brochures. These materials are about raising awareness on The issues of colorism, skin-lightening practice and chemical exposures. We have created this knowledge hub for people to help them stop The use of these toxic skin-lightening products and learn about The health and psychological impact that these products cause for human health. Both The Beautywell database and knowledge hub are now launched and people have been accessing to this information and found The sites helpful. We have developed animation videos in english, somali, spanish, and hmong. These animation videos focus on educating communities of color about mercury, hydroquinone, and steroid exposures from skin-lightening products to raise awareness of The health and psychological impacts of these toxic products. The lack of culturally specific and sensitive educational materials, social pressures, and lack of solid regulation systems that can regulate those toxic chemicals all contribute to this issue. The purpose of these animations is to address The root causes of skin-lightening use, including colorism and other harmful cultural practices. Uplift and communicate messages of diverse beauty standards and community strength while communicating specific information about harms from chemicals.