Hey everyone! It’s Sky from the LunaYou team. I wanted to take a moment to explain my role here at LunaYou, and the journey that has led me to this wonderful team of empowered women.
I’ve been working with LunaYou since September of 2020. I was still in school, and as part of my degree requirements at Wentworth Institute of Technology, I needed to find an internship for the semester. It was a weird experience, trying to look for work in the midst of a global pandemic. Employers were suddenly transitioning to remote work, many Americans found themselves unemployed. It felt wrong to be asking for a job when so many were out of work. But I needed the money, and to fulfill my degree requirement, so I searched. After a summer of Black Lives Matter protests, and a presidential election coming just around the corner, the world felt like it was holding its breath. I spent this time doing a lot of self reflection. I found myself questioning the worth of my industrial design degree. After all, what was the role of product design in a world on fire? The future felt really scary, and my place in it felt uncertain.
That’s when I found LunaYou, and the future seemed a little brighter. Amidst my job search, I found Business Innovation Factory, a nonprofit organization committed to transforming healthcare and education through design. I thought maybe they would have insight into design’s role in an uncertain future. I looked through their website, and saw the many projects they had worked on. I was particularly impressed by their newest project, LunaYou.
LunaYou was using human-centered design to tackle the maternal health crisis in America head on. Prior to finding LunaYou, I knew nothing about maternal health outcomes in the U.S. I was 21, had never given birth, and honestly hadn’t thought much about it until coming across LunaYou’s website. Through some online research, I learned that maternal health outcomes in the United States were worse than in any other high income nation, and that for black women, odds were 3-4 times worse than for white women. From that moment on, I knew I wanted to help in some way.
I was fortunate to have a phone call with Tori Drew, COO of Business Innovation Factory, and project manager at LunaYou. During that phone call I remember asking her, “how do you tackle an issue as big as a maternal health crisis?” She told me, “it’s about finding the people you can help, listening to them, and creating a space where they can feel safe”. She knew we couldn’t fix the entire maternal health crisis alone, but we could make a difference in the lives of individual pregnant people if we worked hard enough. I found it inspiring how much she believed in this cause, and how much she believed in the women she was helping. I wanted to be a part of this fight, and I thought LunaYou was the perfect place to start. I somehow convinced Tori to give me an internship that semester, and it turned out to be the start of a year-long journey I find myself on today.
From the beginning, LunaYou was everything I wanted it to be and more. I had never worked on a team so supportive and motivated. Everybody was driven by a common goal of helping as many pregnant people as possible. Each member of the team was inspiring in their own area of expertise, and the level of compassion they had for each other and for the clients enrolled. Over the last year at LunaYou, I’ve worn many hats. I’ve worked as a social media manager, community outreach leader, and business model designer. I’ve learned about video editing, telemarketing, tech support, and graphic design. I’ve been able to hone my communication skills, and remote work flow. But most importantly, I feel like I’ve been able to contribute to this wonderful cause, and assist new mothers throughout their pregnancy journey.
Working for LunaYou has helped me to reframe the way I see design in today’s world. I realized that in a world on fire, we need good design more than ever to create solutions. I’m so grateful to be a part of this wonderful team.
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