Photo: Mary Mulualem

Student Leader Board Intercultural Engagement, Diversity and Inclusion (IDI) committee member, Anastasiia Titarova (class of 2027) has spearheaded a budding initiative to provide free menstrual products on DKU’s campus. In an interview with the LilyPad, she explains why she has dedicated this semester to pursuing this project.

In February 2026, Titarova hung posters in women’s bathrooms on campus surveying interest in access to free menstrual products provided by the university. On April 11, she distributed boxes of free menstrual products throughout the women’s bathrooms in the Academic Building, Innovation Building, WDR, Library, and the Sports Complex, labeled “For Emergency Use”. Titarova says the initiative is in a two-week pilot testing phase, with supplies funded by the SLB budget. Following the pilot phase, Titarova says she will have to continue searching for an office who can fund the replenishment of the products and potentially employ staff members to be responsible for monitoring and maintaining the boxes.

The project started when Titarova joined the SLB and began searching for a “gap” on campus she could address for her first initiative. She says she identified a lack in “support for female students on our campus.” Titarova said she believes providing free menstrual products is a useful way to support female reproductive health, in addition to the free condoms already provided in campus dormitories.

“When I went to Duke, I found out that [menstrual] products are placed in the restrooms, and it was quite a surprise for me because I have never encountered anything like that before in my life considering that in my country, periods are a bit stigmatized so people don’t actually talk about it in society and especially nobody is going to even think from a perspective that free products should be provided at schools or universities.” Titarova is originally from Russia.  

She initiated a survey among undergraduate and graduate students to collect data on the need and interest in free products and to prove its popular demand “to our community as a whole” to the SLB and university. In one month, the survey received about 200 responses overwhelmingly in support of the idea. The survey posed a question asking respondents’ rationale for interest in free products, with “financial reasons” as an option. Titarova says providing access to menstrual products is essential to preventing “period poverty,” the inability for women to afford menstrual products, because of its impacts on both physical and mental health due to its connections to increased rates of depression. 

According to Titarova, the most common rationale chosen by respondents was convenience rather than financial struggle, indicating period poverty may not be a significant issue on campus. For this reason, she emphasized the purpose of making the products freely accessible as targeting emergency situations, at least to begin with.

Titarova expressed that one of her primary concerns was that the free products would be taken by students not necessarily in immediate or emergency need of them.

“One of the fears that I had before starting this initiative is that people are actually going to abuse these products from the perspective that they are given for free. We all know the problem that is happening in our dorms, how people take each other’s stuff, especially food.” She referenced the campus-wide issue of students losing items, especially food-related, from public spaces.

However, Titarova says she has yet to find any emptied boxes. “I really want to thank those people who go to the restrooms and behave mindfully because in fact, I see that people take them, but at the same time there wasn’t any single box that was empty up to this moment, so it’s already been four days and still all the boxes are full,” she said. “So it means that people are mindful about what they’re doing and I really appreciate that.”

Titarova says the main challenges she and the IDI committee has faced in implementing this initiative stem from the bureaucratic process of securing reliable funding for student initiatives. She says she has approached the Campus Clinic to fund the project long term, which clinic employees reacted enthusiastically to. However, they expressed their lack of complete autonomy over the release of their allocated funds from the other university offices responsible for dividing the school’s budget. 

Titarova was aware of one previous attempt at a similar initiative to provide free menstrual products at DKU by installing vending machines on bathroom walls. However, this faced similarly procedural pushback from the university as the Office of Operations did not approve of additional construction to the bathroom walls, and the idea was eventually abandoned.

Moving forward, Titarova says she hopes can continue the initiative beyond the two week pilot phase. She said these first two weeks will allow her to collect data on how many products are used which will give her a better idea of the required budget to continue and expand the project. 

Titarova says she has heard and seen several positive reactions to the initiative through mutual contacts and on student social media accounts. She is continuing to collect feedback on the project through the form found here.

The SLB holds public biweekly meetings on Mondays at 19:30 in LIB2001 and takes suggestions, complaints, and ideas for initiatives in the survey found here.