Eloise Hall On How A Brand Of Period Products In Australia Is Supporting Women In The Community Facing Period Poverty

Eloise Hall is the Managing Director and co-founder of TABOO Period Products, a social enterprise that sells pads and tampons in Australia, with all profits dedicated to eradicating period poverty.

Eloise is completing her combined degree in business and International relations and is passionate about making structural changes to bridge inequality in our communities. Eloise also serves on the advisory committee for the Adelaide Economic Development Agency.

Eloise has been recognised as the youngest of InDaily’s 40 Under 40 recipients in 2020, a recipient of the Advertisers, Woman of the Year Rising Star award in 2021, and a 2019 Women in Innovation Finalist.

Eloise Hall discusses how a brand of period products in Australia is supporting women in the community facing period poverty, how naivety can be one of the biggest strengths and ways to enjoy the social entrepreneurship journey.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Tom Allen] - Could you please share a bit about your background and what led to your interest and passion in social enterprise?

[Eloise Hall] - I'm 23. So, there's not a lot of background to give, but I grew up in a pretty hard-working home. My parents are both really hard workers. My grandparents are Irish and British immigrants. They work pretty hard to get their families off the ground. My mum is a teacher, she's always had a really deep value for education. And she would dangle the fact that had a great education. She'd dangle that over my head every week of the year. I was always really aware of how privileged I was. I never went to bed hungry; I always had a roof of my head. I was always really aware that I was one of the lucky ones, because I knew how many other people my age didn't have any access to the general human rights that I did. I've always been quite enthused to see my privilege through, in a way that we can have a world that's equal. And when me and my high school best mate, Izzy (Isobel Marshall - Co-founder TABOO) discovered the concept of social enterprise in high school, it felt like this golden ticket of hope. An awesome mechanism of structure where we can make sure that our world looks more equal as we continue through, rather than more and more disconnected.

As the Co-Founder at TABOO could you please tell us more about the organization, its purpose, and the projects you’ve been involved in?

It is in our high school that we came up with the concept of TABOO and we were so excited about social enterprise design. We started thinking about all these things that we buy all the time. We were thinking about chocolate, coffee, and those things that you just have a part of your week. Then we started to chat about period products, and we thought, ‘wow, they're actually really quite expensive!’ If you are on the streets and you are struggling to feed your family, how are you going to prioritise buying period products? And we started grappling with this concept of what your life would look like without access to those products.

WE JUST DEEP DIVED INTO WHAT PERIOD poverty LOOKED LIKE AND UNDERSTOOD HOW MANY GIRLS WEREN'T GOING TO SCHOOL JUST BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T HAVE ACCESS TO PERIOD PRODUCTs.

All of a sudden, this commodity, that we would be buying every month, became like, we understood how much of an invitation to freedom it was. All these young girls weren't going to school because they couldn't afford pads. We just thought this is so ridiculously unfair. Meanwhile, Aussies spend millions and millions of dollars on pad products a year. We almost came up with a solution before we developed that deep heartbreak for what period property looks like. Soon after high school, we just decided we're going to get this off the ground. That was about six years ago and currently TABOO is a brand of period products in Australia. We're selling in 244 stores and we've got our online retail store as well. We've also got a pad-it-forward program so people can buy our product on behalf of someone else, and then we redistribute that product across the country to organisations who look after people who are at risk of poverty. We've been so privileged mostly through our learning stages of starting the business to shadow some organisations in Kenya and India. We've been so lucky to travel into rural Australia as well just understand exactly what period poverty looks like. It's been quite the journey.

If you were to start your business journey all over again, what would you change and where do you see some of the biggest opportunities in the ecosystem to better support entrepreneurs in achieving strong outcomes?

I love this question because I love to think back and think about what I didn't know. But I also think the naivety we had was one of the biggest strengths we had on our side. We didn't have analysis paralysis. If we knew what we were getting ourselves into, there would've been so many more questions. I think with many young people, especially because they're so good at just saying ‘why not? Why not?’ So, instead of asking ‘why’ or ‘how’, it's more “why not?”

We need a change; we need radical ideas to make radical change. In some context, I wouldn't want to change anything. If we knew what we know now, things might have looked different.

I guess one of the biggest gaps was that advice, specifically for social enterprise. We had some really brilliant mentors that were holding our hand through a lot of commercial decisions. We also had some awesome leaders in the charitable space that we could look to for advice. But I'm sure everyone who has worked in the social enterprise space knows that awkward grey area and there's so little advice. We often just had to smush the advice that we got from either end of the spectrum together to figure out what decisions we were going to make. I think that's probably one of the support systems that was lacking a bit.

But it is because it's more of a new idea and you've got a lot of commercial businesspeople that are still quite uncomfortable with the concept. I understand why that gap exists, but that would've been the opportunity that missed out.

What advice would you give other founders looking to scale their purpose-led enterprise?

Scaling is something that we're trying to work out well at the moment as well. I'm not sure if I'm in the best position to give this advice. I think every time it seems really hard, or you have those kinds of more existential questions. I just remember that we are paving a new path, so it's going to be hard. And I guess the advice would just be, what have you got to lose? Like, why not? We're here doing radical things to create radical change, to support people that need our support. We just need to keep going and that's something that my dad's kept reminding me of as well. He goes, “who cares if it fails, you're doing great.” Just keep going. I think as a collective, as a community. We know that this change needs to happen, so I think I'm a bit of a believer in following that energy as well.

If you're really committed to seeing it through, then people will follow. So just keep going. It is hard, but it's worth it.

Having seen burnout affect a wide variety of people in the social enterprise space, what practical advice would you give to other founders to help them stay on top of their mental health?

I'm so glad you're bringing this up with me because it is not discussed enough. Burnout is so real and it's really important that we, in the ecosystem, look out for each other. I think one of the most practical reminders I give myself is that I'm not meant to know it all, and I'm not meant to be perfect. I think social enterprise it's pretty cutting edge and it is quite new. Often you find yourself in a leadership scenario in some capacity, whether it's just sport leadership or beyond, and that maybe it's self-prescribed or other people put that pressure on you, and you feel like you need to know all the answers, which is just unrealistic.

One of the most practical reminders I give myself is: you're meant to make mistakes and you're not meant to know it all.

That simple reminder has been really helpful for me because it also gives me the freedom to be myself, just relaxed and laid back and have a joke and not take life too seriously. That is really important for me personally. And in that, just surround myself with people that are willing to have fun and have a joke because life is meant to be enjoyed. Yes, you can do important things and it's a really purposeful and powerful way to spend your time, but you do have to sit back and have a cocktail every now and then. Put your feet up, think you're doing well. You're allowed to have a break too.

That permission to have a break. And that other technique sounds like just a really good way to keep some of the pressure off and to enjoy the journey rather than constantly searching for and reaching that big goal that you might set out to have at the beginning.

I'd also say just be honest, talk about when you're having bad mental health days because no one's happy every single day of the year. It's really nice to share that experience with other people and really healthy to share the burden.

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across recently which are creating positive social change?

There are so many brilliant organisations running about, doing some really phenomenal stuff. I've been really inspired by Clothing the Gaps, I know it's a bigger name in the social enterprise sphere, but it's just such important work. And anything in that space of Indigenous rights and reconciliation is quite exciting for me. It just makes sense that pursuing this movement in Australia, that's very far neglected so far.

There's another great organisation in SA Trash who are using this technology to refine agricultural waste and they're creating this new plastic technology. That's just so exciting to me, because they've taken the time to think about what do we want to get rid of? And they've got agricultural waste, and plastic waste and they've transformed this circular economy technology. The circular economy makes me really excited because we get to solve two problems at once or more than that even.

To finish off, what books would you recommend to our listeners?

I think my go to for social enterprise would be Muhammad Yunus, A World of Three Zeros. That's such a Bible for me, in terms of how we can actually pursue practical and realistic change in social enterprise. But mostly I have to admit, my mum's a librarian and one of the methods in which I escape the pressure of day to day is through fiction novels; I love them. So, I'd have to say I'm reading Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone. It's just a hilarious crime fiction, I think it's important to escape through words as well as TV.