RealStar’s charity project, Fair Sex School, is an ongoing way for schools to incorporate sex and relationship issues into their core values:
‘to reinforce the concept of Fair Sex, as opposed to Unfair Sex, among young adults, as well as encouraging them to spread the idea into the wider community themselves.’
The goal is to develop knowledge and awareness among young people of sex trafficking and sexual abuse, and to allow them to reflect on these issues. Last September,Vara Highschool, Queen Blanka in Falkenberg, and Technical highschools in Kungsbacka and Halmstad took their first steps towards becoming Fair Sex Schools.
RealStars is thrilled that more schools in Sweden have now chosen to address these issues!Four schools in the South of Sweden have now begun their introductory workshops in which teachers and staff work together to plan how to integrate issues of sex, co-habitation, gender and equality into their teaching year.
Several initiatives which have come out of these workshops include:
1, To create a values day based on Fair Sex
2, To reinforce the work of teachers as role-models, and not giving up!
3, Discussion and reflection on internship and workplace language.
4, To devote tutorial time in classes to considering clips, photos and other viral material to have been online over the previous week.
5, Introducing more Fair Sex and relationship issues into supervision. Taking note of and supporting each other’s ideas!
Point 4 is especially worth noting since the internet and what goes on there is raised as problematic by all participating schools.
How then can we offer help and support to students, even there?
Ulrika Rogland and Caroline Engvall who both work with young people and the internet, recommend simply beginning with the question:
“How was it online today?”
Such simple questions can be the first step towards letting young people open up about what goes on. In addition, it gives us -adults, school staff, parents and others – the chance to actually pass comment on clips, pictures and other material which can seem completely harmless to young people. Kungsbacka Technical college includes weekly tutorial time for its classes, and will now devote a part of this time to discussing what has happened on the internet each week! This great idea is now being spread further to other Fair Sex schools, as well as those planning to become one.
It is always frustrating when we talk about sexual abuse, sex trafficking, harassment, and violations online, and how these are all often a part of many young people’s everyday lives. But RealStars wants to use this frustration to build motivation and inspiration to work together against young people being harmed or harming others. Just chatting about these issues is the first step towards their prevention, and how we can achieve that will follow! This Autumn, several schools are taking this important step, and RealStars is kicking off Fair Sex across the country, engaging adults and young people alike!
// Sandra Davidsson
Process manager, Fair Sex Schools, South