The Taipei City government will begin issuing vouchers for menstrual hygiene products to girls enrolled in area junior high schools under a new program that launched on Monday, guaranteeing access to the products for over 30,000 students.
Under the program, female students will receive NT$200 (US$7.07) vouchers each month to exchange for sanitary products at Hi-Life convenience stores, the Taipei Department of Education announced at a press conference.
The vouchers will give students access to more than 10 brands and types of products, and will also be available during summer vacation, the department said.
To use the vouchers, students can either display a QR code from the city’s CooC-Cloud app at store counters, print a hard copy, or enter their voucher number into one of the stores’ Life-ET multi-purpose terminals, the department said.
The new program grew out of a pilot initiative the city launched last September in five junior high schools, which offered free sanitary products in school bathrooms, Taipei Deputy Mayor Huang Shan-shan (???) said.
However, as that option offered only one choice of product, the city decided to adopt a voucher-based system to allow students to purchase the products themselves, she added.
The city government said it had allocated approximately NT$60 million to fund the program and would recruit participating retailers on a yearly basis.
Hi-Life currently has 61 convenience store locations in Taipei, according to its website.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel