Sem Medo

A platform that spreads sex education for girls of all ages, transforming the Brazilian reality by empowering them with knowledge.

Sem Medo is the first online course in Brazil for sex education. It stands out as an advocacy organization for reproductive choices, and accessible health. As sex education rarely appears in the education curriculum, Sem Medo is a platform that will change that reality. Through lessons that are virtual, students can choose which ones interest them and learn at their own pace, giving them the resources and motivation to develop critical thinking, decision-making skills, respect towards minority groups, and self-knowledge.

Sem Medo’s activities stand in three pillars: learn, recognize and debate. Learn is centered on the courses available on the website, which treat topics mainly in concern to girls. Those topics are made with sex education curriculums in mind, fourteen lessons are currently being written and researched, examples are menstruation, pregnancy, consent, sexuality, gender, and contraceptives.

Recognize focuses on personal experiences with sex education and issues related, they will be shared on the website’s blog area, which allows the students to understand they are not alone.

Debate concerns interviews also shared in the blog area of the course’s website, their intent is to make students think critically about gender and sexuality issues.

According to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Brazil’s sex education ranks as one of the worst in Latin America, standing lower than Argentina, Colombia, Chile, and Mexico. One of the reasons for that is that even if sex education is a part of the National Curriculum, it has no specific measures, activities, or surveillance. As conservatorship grew in the 21s century, schools were no exception. The movement Escola Sem Partido (School Without a Politic Party) goes as far as proposing actions prohibiting the term “gender.” 

As a consequence, there is a growth in teenage pregnancy, an obstacle for women to join the workforce, and a lack of understanding from early ages about sexual assault. The worst affected are women and the LGBTQIAP+. In the most recent census, 52,2% of the population were women (109,4 million) and 10% were openly part of the LGBTQIAP+ community (20 million). 

Out of those, 58,9% of students from the country have skipped class out of fear of attacks due to their sexuality, 9% of women do not have a say in their contraceptive choices, and for every thousand babies born in Brazil, 62 of those mom's are 15-19 years old. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, girls of lower income have five times more chances of getting pregnant. The worrying scenario is that while the sexual liberty of Gen Z is higher, the understanding of sex as a whole is lower.

Sem Medo was made to provide components of the sex education curriculum in a platform that is focused on groups that are generally disadvantaged and/or ignored in classroom settings of the subject. With a neutral language, respect for diversity, and constant feedback possibilities, the organization focuses on serving girls and the LGBTQIAP+ community in Brazil. Those are both groups underrepresented in politics, that are continuously having their rights doubted and ranked lower than that of others.

Sem Medo uses lessons to promote sex education, using not only a biological point of view but also a cultural and humane vision that allows the content to be easily understood and relatable to its specific readers, empowering them to make their own decisions wisely. Lessons are categorized to be appropriate for different moments of life, the categories are ages 5 to 8, 9 to 14, and 15 to 19 years old. 

We understand how important it is to connect and learn with the ones we impact, so there is one form for feedback and contact fixated on the platform. As we see that gender and sexuality are so personal and unique to each person and their nuances, the lessons are made to be taken in the order that benefits the order, making users reflect on the areas they need to improve their knowledge on. Overall, Sem Medo prepares the students to have a healthy life, filled with self-knowledge, decision-making skills.

Sem Medo is a women-led initiative, initially based on the founder's mother experience with sex education as a teenage solo mother. 

The research behind Sem Medo was done in four steps:

Community assessment: Studies on what community to serve and where to focus. After, understanding the assets and issues of the community served in a five-page report, analyzing Brazil and its different facets.

Interviewing process: A series of questions on how students understand sex education, its importance, character, and consequences. Points of view varied within different identities of gender, sexuality, and exposure to social-economic factors. Ranging from "It is a taboo topic, not discussed", "We are recently developing Sex Ed in the community" to "We have an extensive background of Sex Ed." Only 10% said that they had an extensive background, while 50% said it is taboo.

Root Cause Analysis: Seeing the divergences in the last step of contacting the intended users, it was time to research academic writings and health professionals to understand how local power dynamics and local beliefs, values, and attitudes may be causing this problem. As an overlook into the main causes, the final activity for the third step was making a summary of all information gathered.

Mapping of organizations and professionals: Since our mission and values were defined, the last research was looking into more than 25 related organizations and entering in contact.

As the community assessment and research of missions and values for Sem Medo have been done, it has already proven the feasibility of the organization’s work with its impact group. Combined with the pillars of activities being defined (learn comprised by lessons, recognize by statements, and debate by reports), and the recognition the project has already gotten (monetary and socially) by prizes and grants, the last step into moving from this stage of development is near. 

The final approvals Sem Medo needs as a prototype is to have the curriculum and lessons approved by our testing group (made out of health specialists, advocates for sex education, and the intended target demographic) and to have the platform finished in the lessons and blog areas.

Our lessons and materials are going to be available on our educational platform (website). The first version of the website is being finished to include all necessary information for parents (1), partners (2), volunteers (3), and students (4).

1. Parents in the beta version of the website will be able to have contact with the organization via simple forms that allow them to ask for guidance with their children and teenagers’ sex education learning. In the more advanced website, developed for the Growth phase with feedback, we hope to add an AI assistant to the site for the most common doubts.

2. Partners at the first moment can find our contact and recognition available. After the Pilot phase, impact numbers and reports will be added on a semester basis.

3. Individuals interested in volunteering with the organization can submit a quick application that is open all year round, and it will go into our database for possible helpers.

4. Students will be able to access interviews and other writings about sex education easily on the website, to start thinking about the topic and gender issues. More importantly, they will have a registered user only are in the website, where they can easily enroll in any of the topics, completing the necessary readings, videos, and quizzes. 

According to the studies of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, our main public constituted of children and teenagers (counted as until 19) are 33% of the total population, which amounts to approximately 70 million. 

In the first year as the content is being tested and developed progressively with different feedbacks and users, we aim to achieve between 0.001% and 0,003% of children and teenagers in each of the five regions of Brazil with the help of local governments and educational institutions. According to the census made in 2019 by the NGO Fundação Abriq, the North East and South East have the largest concentration with (respectively) 20.576.797 and 26.251.225. While North, South, and Midwest are, in order, 7.562.563, 9.053.985, 5.387.297.

Sem Medo is planned for the years 2022-2023 as fully online due to COVID-19’s impact in Brazil. This decreases our total number of possible impact students by 11%, as those individuals do not have access to the internet. However, in the next five years, Sem Medo has the aim of containing in-person lessons too, in order to get to those students. 

Within the next year, our main aims are to launch six lessons (2 for each age category)  to get feedback and improve them, and to impact between 0.001% and 0,003% of children and teenagers in each of the five regions of Brazil, with the goal of 1,000 registered users.

In order to achieve the first goal, our focus is on creating and consolidating a community of volunteers writers and health specialists. With more help, Sem Medo can fall into an organizational system that is more efficient, and the volunteers’ realities will also be impacted with the direct contact with the students.

In terms of our growth, to promote our works and achieve as much diversity in our users as possible, our plan is growing an online presence, as well as partnering local governments and educational institutions to promote a sex education campaign and partnering with companies that sell menstrual and intimate hygiene products to donate for centers for youth in need.

1. During prototype: 

   1. Monthly reunions are made to check on the SMART goals the project has set in its calendar planning, as well as reunions to brainstorm and put into action the platform.

   2. As soon as the content is finished, it will first pass by representing members of our focus public, as well as health workers and gender activists.

2. During pilot: 

   1. A feedback form will be available at the end of each lesson, asking students what they thought about the quality of the content, materials, and activities, how it helped them, and what could be improved. 

   2. Having access to the Big Data of our platform, we can also see the disparity between unregistered and registered users, which will be a sign of our quality of service. 

   3. The first round of students will have access to a Calendar where they can set 10-minute feedback calls with our team.

1. COVID-19: the pandemic has made in-person programs dangerous, especially in Brazil. Up until January of 2022, there have been more than 621 thousand deaths, so our team thinks it is best not to put students and workers at risk. Unfortunately, this makes our access to the Brazilian youth limited for the time being.
2. Brazil’s prejudice with sex education: as many parents do not encourage their children and teenagers to learn about the topic, our focus has to be shared between showing adults why it matters and making the youth have an interest in learning.
3. Health workers and volunteers pay: as the organization is still developing itself, works (with the exception of the programmer for the website) are not paid. We hope to change that so Sem Medo can sustain itself, have workers dedicated to it, and help the lack of employment in Brazil.

Sem Medo is a woman-led organization. The founder’s passion and understanding of the need for sex education and advocacy for gender issues came from her experience as a survivor of domestic violence and from being the daughter of a solo teenage mother. Over the past four years, she has served over 23 organizations in the causes of gender and education equality.

The organization has the added vision of our programmer, who identifies as a cisgender man. His experience on past websites has been complementing his own doubts about the topic, and in that way, the user interface is carefully crafted so that sex education is clear to whoever enters our platform. 

1. Civics Unplugged. This partnership was made as Sem Medo became the first Brazilian project to enter the Civics 2030 campaign. The grant was used to make the platform and all costs involved with it.

2. Next Generation Foresight Practitioners. As Sem Medo was recognized by the Next Generation Foresight Practitioners Awards for 2021, it became part of their network which helps youth leaders.

We see Sem Medo's main aim as improving health access to girls. Our organization is developing to show that sex education involves more than biology knowledge. Unfortunately, it is an education that is set aside, and when ignored contributes to patriarchal social norms that contain prejudice towards minorities. 

As Sem Medo comes closer to the next step, we want to bring light to the topic, making girls and women know they have multiple choices, and that none of them should be shamed. With The Pozen Social Innovation Prize not only is sex education going to have the exposure it needs, but it will give an opportunity for Sem Medo to bring campaigns and accessible health education to the Brazilian youth with a greater structure and investment. 

This would make a great difference as the investment would allow us to invest in health professionals, writers, impact reports, menstrual and hygiene products donations, materials for in-person lessons, an improved platform with AI, better data storage, and resources for students.