TabuTabu

I am on a mission to speed up and scale up my vision of tackling a lack of sexuality education in Latin America's most underserved communities. At TabuTabu, we work with grassroots NGOs and their communities to develop app-based educational programs that address their local sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) needs. 

We are collaborating with two communities in Brazil and Honduras. So far, our work is a product of my networking and collaboration with volunteers. Whilst our reach to date is still limited, our learners already demonstrate greater self-awareness, empathy for one another, and more openness to discussing SRHR. 

The Elevate Prize would empower us to extend our reach and deepen these journeys in a number of ways. Firstly, the funding would go towards hiring a small team to accelerate program development, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation with our current partnerships. Secondly, it would enable us to dedicate resources to increasing our geographical footprint in a systematic and strategic manner.

Lastly, having access to the Elevate team and their partners would also provide me with an invaluable source of guidance and support. This would be particularly helpful as I develop different business development and sustainable revenue model strategies.

I started TabuTabu after working in NGOs across Latin America supporting youth and young mothers living in poverty, as well as survivors of trafficking and sex workers. These experiences highlighted the importance of offering safe spaces for sexuality education within marginalised communities. Consequently, I completed University of Michigan's Sexual Health Certificate Program, where I was awarded the Sallie Foley Scholarship for my commitment to working with underserved populations through sexual health education.

TabuTabu envisions a world where human sexuality is not a taboo, where all people benefit from sexuality education to empower them to engage in healthy, safe and respectful relationships, regardless of gender identity and sexual orientation. Our programs are designed and implemented with established grassroots NGOs.

TabuTabu's goal is to scale our reach across communities living in poverty in Latin America (and eventually, beyond). We aim to do this by expanding our network of partnerships, and by leveraging easily scalable app technologies to adapt the content to communities’ local contexts and needs. Active learner participation establishes those needs, ultimately making our programs products of community-led development. This way both the construction and content of the programs empower previously marginalized communities to develop their own solutions for social change.

Latin America is the only region in the world where adolescent pregnancies are not decreasing, contributing to the region's rate of 75% of unwanted pregnancies. It is estimated that 25% of young women in the region first married (or equivalent) before their 18th birthday. The region is home to  14 of the 25 countries with the highest femicide rates worldwide and accounts for 78% of global violent deaths of transgender folks.

Although comprehensive sexuality education has been shown to increase gender equity, improve healthy communication in relationships, and reduce intimate partner violence and childhood sexual abuse, it has been politicized and is opposed by conservative parties in the region. Communities living in poverty are most affected by lack of access to information, thereby propagating the cycle of poverty further.

TabuTabu works to empower grassroots NGOs in Latin America with sexuality education programs that tackle their communities’ most pressing SRHR concerns. The organizations, their learners, and our team define the priorities and co-create the programs to suit the communities' learning needs. TabuTabu also ensures logistical requirements for implementation are met, allowing existing NGO facilitators to implement the programs without requiring training in sexuality education or the involvement of expert staff.

We apply ed-tech (combining hardware and software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning) for sexuality education, targeting communities living in extreme poverty. We develop tailor-made educational programs addressing different communities' specific SRHR learning needs. This content is delivered via tablets/apps and reinforced in group activities.

Our model is innovative by leveraging technology to overcome low literacy (often a barrier to learning), and by presenting learners with challenging topics and new perspectives in a non-confrontational way (through storytelling/fictional characters). Technology also makes the model adaptable (switching illustrations and voices/accents for contextual relevance, changing content covered, etc.) and scalable (the app provides the content/explanations, without requiring expert staff). Apps also provide automated feedback to inform program improvements: response rates to indicate which topics/concepts need reworking, etc.

Lastly, our process is also innovative for how much it is based on community participation. We explore learning priorities with the organizations and local learners, and co-create the content with historically and systemically marginalized communities. We also call on a network of educators with different lenses (including queer, trans and Latinx), for the programs to be as unbiased as possible, pertinent, and truly conducive to positive social change.

TabuTabu exists to positively impact Latin America's attitudes to sexuality and interpersonal interactions, to enable safer and healthier relationships, and thus promote more empathising and thriving communities. Through co-created sexuality education programs, we scale access to relevant information about sexual and reproductive health and rights, and address and reduce trauma caused by sexual violence and gender norms in underserved communities in the region.

To achieve this, we are:

• working with two partners (rural Honduras vs. urban-periphery Rio) to prove the scalability of our programs

• engaging local NGOs and communities in co-creation from the beginning, ensuring contextual relevance, learner engagement, community ownership, and sustainability of content

• running prototype workshops in which learners explore learning priorities whilst TabuTabu tests different group activities to identify which formats (don't) work

• calling on educators with different lenses (including queer, trans and Latinx) to minimize educator bias and ensure broad representation

• developing apps that presents the lesson content, allowing NGO partners to facilitate lessons without needing to hire sexuality educators, reducing facilitator bias and enabling  program scalability

• developing apps with relatable characters/examples and voiceovers that narrate and explain the content,  so as to increase learner engagement and be inclusive of learners of all literacy levels.