The fight for inclusive, diverse menstrual health and comprehensive sexuality education and the fight against sexual and gender-based violence are a matter of human rights. However, menstrual health, sexuality, and gender education is not sufficiently addressed in youth education and training. Education youth receive in schools and youth organisations does not take into account aspects of menstrual health and hygiene; sex characteristics; sexual orientation, gender identity and expression; sexual desire expression, and sexual practices. Instead, youth enter adulthood with such a knowledge, skills, and capability gap on the very things that affect and shape their daily life.
So, the fact that menstrual health, sexuality, and gender education is lacking at all the levels of education, most youth are hardly reached by this education to make informed choices regarding their lives in order to ensure their rights to bodily integrity and personal autonomy. So, what they will come to learn in life is deeply determined by preconceived social and cultural norms; and thus, this is how many challenges and obstacles to sexual health and rights, menstrual heath awareness, and gender-based violence prevention arise. Therefore, the project objective is to strengthen youth capacity and skills to be aware of and empowered to claim, exercise, realise, and enjoy their sexual health and rights through inclusive, community-based participatory interventions.
This means, providing the youth workers and youth-based organisations with open educational resources and digital youth work tools in the context of non-formal education. And then train them on how to use or apply those resources and tools to address sexual and menstrual health and gender education in youth work. The project targets the youth who are victims of discrimination or at risk of social exclusion and youth workers who work with or for them. They are the youth who are more likely to experience sexism, discrimination and/or racism such as young women in vulnerable situations, youth with disability, racial minority youth, and sexual or gender minority youth. |
12 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE
IN YOUTH’S EDUCATION
90 PROJECTS EXECUTED
80 PARTNERS ENGAGED
1500 YOUTHS REACHED