ALGONQUIN COLLEGE
Algonquin College facilitates donation of menstrual hygiene products to St. Lucia

In October, Algonquin College had the privilege of assisting with the facilitation of a donation of menstrual hygiene products from Citron Hygiene and Aunt Flow to Sir Arthur Lewis Community College and the National Skills and Development Centre in St. Lucia.

The donation of pads and tampons from Citron Hygiene and Aunt Flow will provide students at these schools with access to free menstrual hygiene products across multiple campuses on the island. In addition, Algonquin College's MakerSpace in Ottawa played a pivotal role in this project by creating custom-made dispensers to display and store these products.

While in St. Lucia, members of the Algonquin College Communications team and the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion team spent a week working with both Colleges to develop a Gender Inclusion Action Plan, create promotional marketing materials for their new Agriculture programs, run a focus group on gender, and create a social media campaign and press event around the donation of these menstrual hygiene products from Citron Hygiene and Aunt Flow.

Algonquin College is a strong advocate for free access to menstrual hygiene products and has been working on facilitating this donation since launching our own initiative to provide free menstrual hygiene products on our Ottawa campus earlier this year. We believe that access to essential hygiene products is fundamental to ensuring an inclusive and supportive learning environment. We are proud to be able to help spread this movement of tackling period poverty to these colleges in St. Lucia, where they are now launching their own similar initiative, starting with this donation.

This partnership was made possible due to Algonquin College's involvement in the Skills to Access the Green Economy (SAGE) Program - funded by Colleges and Institutes Canada/Global Affairs Canada (GAC) - and from the generous donation of menstrual hygiene products from Citron Hygiene and Aunt Flow.

Watch a video recap of Algonquin College's trip to St. Lucia.