Are you in need of emergency contraceptives, reproductive health advice or menstrual products? Black Book Sex Ed is a community organization looking to serve women by providing them with necessary products and educating them about their bodies.
The founders, Limya Harvey and Cydney Mumford have been building the organization’s foundation since April 2023 and are excited to see its growth in the coming months.
“We started back in April, so we do not have an office or anything, but that is the goal,” Harvey said. “Currently, it is just me and my co-founder. We do have a volunteer base that we have been building. As we build connections with some of the volunteers to see how they can further help the organization, I imagine that leading to other roles like social media management would take things off of our plate.”
Fueled by their love of sexual health education, Harvey and Mumford decided to start packaging kits for women to hand out at local markets; this sparked the idea for an organization where women could help and educate on a broader scale.
“I was working at a nonprofit that is popular in the state, and I felt like I was not doing as much on-the-ground work as I could be,” Harvey said. “I pitched an idea similar to what we are doing now, but they were not on board with it. Cydney mentioned to me that she wanted to make it happen, so on a random Sunday, we decided to make kits and go to a market that was five days later.”
“We used everything that was in our closets and already at our disposal to take to a Beauty Haus market that Friday,” Harvey continued. “We were very well-received at the market. People kept asking us how long we had been around, and it was funny to tell them the story.”
The organization has multiple kits that can be requested, either from their website or Instagram, that serve different purposes.
“In the emergency contraception kits, those come with eight to ten condoms, one emergency contraception, ‘how to use a condom’ card, locations of local Planned Parenthoods and lube,” Harvey explained.
“For the menstrual product kits, those come with pads, tampons, wipes, pain reliever and pantyliners. If you are getting a kit delivered, we try to package them with multiple products instead of one because we do not want anyone [to feel] like they have to constantly request a kit. This way, they can have some extra stuff lying around to last them a little bit longer.”
While these kits can be delivered, that is not the only method of receiving them. Black Book Sex Ed aims to host multiple events throughout the month to distribute kits as needed.
“With the semester starting, we have had to morph our schedules a little bit,” Harvey said. “Typically, our goal is to have around four events per month. It also depends on the context of the month, like ‘National Black HIV Awareness Day’ is this month, and we have an event surrounding that. The events vary from pop-up shows or benefit shows to things very specific to a particular part of health.”
Black Book Sex Ed is an organization run by women dedicated to helping women, which is something to be appreciated. The organization is self-funded, but a QR code is available on their Instagram for anyone interested in making donations.
For more information or to request a kit, visit https://www.blackbooksexed.org/ and click the green button in the top right corner.
