L-R: Irlanda Gonzalez Price, AVP of Student Affairs; Sean Desrochers, VIUSU’s Director of External Relations; and Cole Reinbold, VIUSU Women Students’ Representative, celebrate the availability of free menstrual products at Nanaimo's VIU campus. (Vancouver Island University)

By Jordan Davidson

period promise

‘This is a human need;’ United Way partners with VIU to provide free menstrual products

May 13, 2022 | 4:42 PM

NANAIMO — Mid-Island university students now have access to a variety of menstrual products, all free of charge.

Vancouver Island University (VIU) has partnered with the United Way’s Period Promise campaign to help raise awareness about period poverty and menstrual equity.

VIU students’ union women students’ representative Cole Reinbold said period poverty is when a person lacks access to menstrual products due to financial limitations which can have wide-ranging consequences.

“Periods aren’t as predictable as they are made out to be. A person who has a period could have to leave campus in order to get their period products from home, and they might be so embarrassed that they take the entire day off of school.”

A wide variety of menstrual products, including tampons, pads, and panty liners, are available free of charge in all women’s and gender-neutral washrooms on VIU’s campuses and facilities.

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The program was soft-launched in the fall of 2021, offering free products in the library, cafeteria, and gym at the Nanaimo campus.

During that time, Reinbold said the need was clearly demonstrated.

“We found that the students’ need for it was much larger than anticipated. Students were coming all the way up from the Fisheries building at the top of campus to the Students Union building for menstrual products. It was this wide need that no one talked about, and that was the most surprising thing.”

She has heard lots of positive support from her fellow students about how inclusive this program is, and how it all comes back to making education more accessible for everyone.

“It’s been an overwhelmingly positive response and its started this open communication about costs that are weighted on to women unequally compared to men… this is human need, it’s no different than needing toilet paper…it’s opened a lot of great conversation, but also more questions.”

Community impact manager with the United Way Julie Rushton said they did a recent survey where at least half of the respondents said they had trouble purchasing period products at some point in their life.

“Menstruation is one of the top reasons that women miss work, and that’s according to the BC Women’s Health Foundation…people have responded and said that finding period products in their community really supports them to attend these community events.”

VIU is only the second post-secondary institution in B.C. to commit to providing free, diverse, and accessible menstrual products to employees, clients, and community members.

The receptacles are currently installed and stocked up on the main buildings on campus, and work is currently being done to get them in all campus bathrooms.

The products are available to everyone on campus, and also available to members of the public during regular business hours.

The complimentary menstrual product initiative is planned to be used at all VIU campuses for now, with future plans to spread it out across Island libraries.

There’s also interest from some groups in the Comox Valley to bring this program there.

The pilot project was started in 2019, with their first focus on distributing products to the Nanaimo Women’s Centre.

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jordan@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @JordanDHeyNow