Forth Valley College’s free female sanitary product initiative received support from a Central Scotland MSP this week.
Scottish Labour’s Monica Lennon visited the Falkirk Campus on Thursday 23 August to personally back the programme which will see two distribution points and vending machines provide female students with free sanitary products at each FVC Campus. Ms Lennon had previously visited FVC’s Stirling Campus earlier in the year to highlight the same initiative.
There was more good news on Friday August 24 when the Scottish Funding Council announced that FVC will receive £51,368 to help fund this initiative.
Monica Lennon MSP, said: “Access to period products in public bathrooms should be as easy as reaching for toilet paper. Even when dispensers are provided, pads and tampons tend to be overpriced and unaffordable for women, especially students and young people.”
“Students, like those who attend Forth Valley College, should not have to worry about their period disrupting their studies and I am delighted that just as the first term of 2018/19 is about the begin, all students and staff will be able to access free period products.”
“My ambition is to achieve a universal system of free access to period products in Scotland – free provision across schools, colleges, and universities is one step closer to achieving this.”
Forth Valley College Principal Dr Ken Thomson, said: “It was great to welcome Monica Lennon MSP to our Falkirk Campus on Thursday, to lend support to this important initiative. Scotland as a whole, and especially further and higher education organisations such as ourselves, are leading the way in the UK on an issue which has been sadly neglected till now. We pride ourselves on being a progressive and forward thinking college and it is initiatives such as this which help us make learning work for our students.”