Free sanitary products now provided on campus

Sanitary towels and tampons are now available to staff and students for free on Whiteknights and London Road campuses, after funding was provided to make one student’s idea reality.

The idea was brought to the University by third-year student Chryssa Economou, supported by RUSU, in October 2022 and has been funded by the Diversity & Inclusion Initiative.

The initiative is intended to combat period poverty, which is reported to have caused nearly one in eight women in the UK to struggle to buy sanitary products in 2022.

Menstrual products are now available in dispensers at:

Whiteknights

• Palmer building – women’s toilets (building 26 on Whiteknights campus map)
• Agriculture Building – women’s toilets (building 59 Whiteknights)
• 3sixty – upper-level gender neutral toilets in RUSU (building 29 Whiteknights)

London Road

• The Dairy – women’s toilets (building 14 on London Road campus map)

Funding was put in place by Dr Allán Laville for the remainder of his term as Dean for Diversity & Inclusion, which ends in December 2025.

Period poverty

Period poverty is when an individual is unable to access menstrual products, usually due to financial reasons.

Charity ActionAid reported that 12% of British women are affected by period poverty.

Lack of access to menstrual products is known to cause some young people to miss school, with the UK government bringing in a scheme in 2020 to provide free products in schools and colleges.