moose musings: lip lip hooray!
Found. One x awesome fundraising initiative that won't make my hair go frizzy (ALS ice bucket challenge i'm looking at you) or pudgy (RSPCA cupcake day, please stand up - although this one i highly recommend) or grow facial hair (ugh - movember). Nope, this one is all about puckering up with lucious lips - for Liptember. This I can do!
Throughout September, the Liptember campaign raises awareness and funds for
women’s mental health. How? By selling offical Liptember lipsticks throughout participating retailers. Which is where you come in. All you have to do is purchase a lipstick, register online and seek sponsorship from friends + family for committing to wear the Liptember Lipstick throughout the month of September. Easy peasy!
Now pucker up - and read about my quick chat to the brains behind Liptember, Luke Morris...
How did this brilliant campaign come about?
The concept came about with my wife and friends in late 2009 when all the guys at the pub were doing Movember. We wanted to created a fun fundraising campaign specific for women.
Why women's mental health?
When we first came up with the concept, we met with the Royal Women’s Hospital and asked what area of womens health needs more attention. Without hesitation they said women’s mental health. Some of the stats surrounding women’s mental health are astounding and need to be addressed. At the moment there is little mental health research based on women and more focus needs to be placed on treating men and women separately when it comes to mental health. Some stats:
- Suicide is the biggest single cause of death for Australian women aged 18 to 34
- One in three Australian women will suffer depression or anxiety during their lifetime
- Women and more susceptible to anxiety and depression that men
- Postnatal depression affects 15% of women within the first year of childbirth
Was it hard getting it off the ground initially?
It was a lot of hard work early on to get organisations to support the campaign, especially in such an overly saturated charity market. Our real break was when Chemist Warehouse came on board in 2013 as a major partner. We have been blown away by their support which has allowed the campaign to grow dramatically over the last 12 months.
How did Liptember go last year?
In 2013 we raised over $400,000 during the campaign and funded some really significant programs such as the national NBO and doubled Lifeline’s online counselling hours
Tell us about some of the lipsticks available...
Our lipsticks are sold at all Chemist Warehouse, My Chemist and My Beauty Spot stores nation wide with proceeds donated back to the campaign. We have a range of colours from pink to green for some of our more daring participants
Tell us about some of the Liptember ambassadors...
We have some wonderful ambassadors including Lydia Lassila, Jo Silvagni, Molly Meldrum and this year we have Chelsea Roffery, the first female AFL goal umpire
What can readers do to help?
Readers can purchase any of our lipsticks instore and visit liptember.com.au to register and start raising funds and awareness for womens mental health
Lip, lip hopray, alright.
Moose out
B x
