It is one more step in the fight against menstrual insecurity. A dispenser of free periodic protection has just been installed in the lobby of the preventive medicine center on the Caen campus: the culmination of a project carried out for two years by the sang’sationnel collective.
–
The inauguration could not be done with great fanfare, Covid obliges, but behind the masks we can guess the smiles. Thanks to the pugnacity of the Sang’sationnel collective, a dispenser of free sanitary napkins and tampons could be installed this Thursday, March 25, in the lobby of the preventive medicine center (SUMPPS) located on campus 1. All campuses should be there. equipped at the start of the next school year, but that of Caen six months in advance.
Edouard Duchemin and the other members of the sexual health education and promotion collective have been working on this project for two years. “There is still a big taboo today on menstruation and menstrual precariousness, our objective is to inform about the weight that this can represent in the lives of women” explains Edouard Duchemin, the co-founder of the Sang’sationnel collective.
In a woman’s life, the period budget is estimated at around 5 to 7,000 euros. A huge burden when you’re a student.
On this subject, the editorial staff recommends
–
Access to quality products is the other challenge of this system. The towels and tampons are organic and eco – responsible.
The dispenser is stocked with organic and eco-responsible towels and tampons
•
© France Télévisions / A.Pinault
–
It is a staple product. We do not do without hygienic protection! However, students in a precarious situation will choose to pay their rent and eat rather than buy quality hygienic protection.
Free and open access protection
The preventive medicine center is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Students already know this place to be able to get condoms for free. The dispenser is installed at wheelchair height to allow access for people with disabilities. What to refuel in all discretion, “Not like in college or high school, remembers Léna, a young student : It was very taboo, we sometimes discreetly asked a friend if she could help us out… Otherwise, we had to go and ask the nurse in the establishment. “
Léna admits that since she was a student, she can access periodic protection more easily. For example, they have free access to the Agoraé solidarity grocery store located a stone’s throw from the preventive medicine center on Campus 1. And the Sang’sationnel collective regularly organizes collections and distributions, on campus, but also in other places in the Caen conurbation, such as the week at the center of life in the Venoix district in Caen.
This project was able to see the light of day in March thanks to the obtaining of a subsidy of 10,000 € allocated by the DTAS (Directorate of Territories and Social Action). It will be used to organize distributions of free protection and to supply the campus distributor. “We do not yet know the flow (no pun intended!) That this distributor will generate … we will adapt according to demand” explains Edouard Duchemin.
Thanks to the action of Sang’sationnel, the Caen campus is one of the first to install this type of distributor. Frédérique Vidal, the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, announced a month ago that they would be deployed on all French campuses at the start of the 2021 school year.
–
