Spunout is launching a new sex education campaign inclusive towards LGBT community through its young volunteers.
The campaign ‘Under the Sheets’ was launched following consultation with many young people who access the Spunout website for resources on sexual health. The campaign was devised by Spunout’s youth volunteers, aged between 16-25.
Illan Dunne, a member of Spunout’s action panel, told Newstalk listeners that sexual education needs to be accommodating of all sex orientations, as LGBT students deserve the same rights to education as everyone else.
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Illan told Newstalk: “I probably got one class in the six years of secondary school that went along the lines of ‘Gay is OK’ which is not sufficient. More could be done and it’s up to the new RSE programme to see if they can adequately cover it.”
The Relationships and Sexuality Education programme launched plans earlier in the summer to revamp the Junior Cert sex ed curriculum. The new plans will see lessons on consent and the use of pornography added to secondary school sex education. Illan told listeners that Spunout welcomes the new curriculum but that conversations surrounding sex in schools need to be normalised.
Illan added: "If you go on Spunout, we have contributions from young people all over Ireland talking about their sex ed experience. No one got the same sex ed experience shockingly."
The campaign also wants to see discussions surrounding contraceptive use included in the classroom, as well as dialogue surrounding STI testing. The media campaign also includes testimonies from students, with one student expressing they felt bad for students who missed out on the revisions to next year’s Junior Cert curriculum.
The student wrote: “At the end of the day, knowledge is power, and education is key. Young people of Ireland deserve this."
Spunout is a youth-led website that provides young people with resources and information on sexual health, education, employment and general wellbeing. It was founded in 2004 and has a youth action panel comprising of over 150 members.
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