Talking Periods: First Nations and Arabic Communities

For many young people, conversations about menstruation can feel uncomfortable or taboo. These challenges can be amplified by cultural expectations, family dynamics and limited access to culturally relevant health information. Jean Hailes sought a campaign that would encourage more open and supportive conversations about periods within First Nations and Arabic-speaking families while ensuring the messaging felt authentic and culturally safe for each audience.

Rather than developing generic educational content, Ethnolink built the campaign around the lived experiences of real families.

Ethnolink identified and recruited both a First Nations father and daughter and an Arabic-speaking mother and daughter whose personal stories reflected the challenges, emotions and cultural perspectives surrounding conversations about menstruation. Through in-depth interviews, Ethnolink explored each family’s experiences, using these insights to shape the communications strategy, creative narrative and campaign scripts.

Although both campaigns shared the same objective, each was developed independently to reflect the cultural context of its audience. The First Nations campaign centred on family support, openness and intergenerational learning, while the Arabic campaign acknowledged cultural sensitivities and demonstrated how trusted family conversations can help young people feel informed, confident and supported.

Ethnolink led story development, creative direction and talent management throughout the project, ensuring each family’s voice remained authentic while translating lived experience into compelling campaign narratives. Working with production partners, Ethnolink delivered a suite of live-action videos, including English-language content for First Nations audiences and Arabic-language videos for Arabic-speaking communities.

By placing authentic family stories at the centre of the campaign, Talking Periods transformed what can often be a difficult health topic into conversations that felt relatable, respectful and culturally appropriate. The use of real community members enabled the campaign to move beyond awareness messaging, encouraging families to discuss menstruation in ways that reflected their own experiences, values and relationships.

The project demonstrated how a single health objective can be successfully adapted across different cultural communities without relying on a one-size-fits-all approach. Through community-led storytelling, culturally tailored creative and multilingual production, Ethnolink helped Jean Hailes deliver a campaign that fostered trust, challenged stigma and created meaningful conversations about menstrual health among First Nations and Arabic-speaking families.