TeenUp CSE platform
Without comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), 16 million students’ sexual health and well-being are at great risk:
In Vietnam only, a child gets sexually abused every 8 hours (tuoitre.vn, 2017); the rate of children engaging in sexual activities before 14 has doubled in six years (tuoitre.vn, 2022); and abortion rate is in World’s top 3 with 70% of secret abortions performed on teenagers aged 13-19 (vtv.vn, 2019). Such indicators and trends of problems are also seen in other SEA countries like Laos, Indonesia, Thailand (Guttmacher Institute, 2022).
At the same time, stress from academic, family relationships and gender prejudices leaves children vulnerable to mental health issues, affecting their lifelong happiness.
The absence of comprehensive sexuality education perpetuates cycles of poverty and injustice. 16 million youths, especially girls, lacking essential knowledge about their bodies, relationships, and rights face higher risks of sexual abuse, STDs, unwanted pregnancies, child marriages, and school dropouts.
That is why schools and parents demand a solution of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) to equip both themselves and their children with the competencies to overcome the problems, secure healthy relationships, and ensure their children grow up safe, healthy and happy.
We offer TeenUp, a dynamic CSE platform with a wide range of learning modalities:
- In-app lessons (app subscription)
- Offline classes at partnered schools (as a subject)
- Offline classes at our learning centers
- Books and materials
At the heart of TeenUp is a user-friendly mobile app available on both Android and iOS platforms. This app serves as a central hub for all students, offering interactive CSE lessons, quizzes, and a supportive community for users to connect and discuss important topics.
Furthermore, our CSE initiative extends our impact beyond individual students. We partner with local schools, offering trainings so they effectively deliver our CSE curriculum, app and materials to students as a dedicated subject. This ensures a consistent, high-quality learning experience. Through this model, students benefit from weekly lessons enriched with engaging content and activities, while teachers receive workshops to enhance their competence and confidence in teaching our curriculum. This blended learning approach combines the convenience of digital education with the personal interaction of in-person classes, fostering a deeper understanding and and application of the knowledge.
Classes at our learning center(s) are the same, but taught by our own experts.
Our CSE materials include guides, textbooks, information cards, hygiene pads, and condoms, etc., delivered as a complete package so students and their parents can overcome the awkwardness and learn CSE at home.
16 million students are growing up without CSE: In 2018, the Ministry of Education approved of its first-ever CSE guidance (adapted from ITGSE - International technical guidance on sexuality education). This was a big step, yet, the guidelines were too general for actual lessons, leaving the guidance almost unused. This happens for two reasons:
1. Lack of complete CSE curriculum and infrastructure: The guidance itself and provided learning materials are not enough. To deliver actual lessons, schools and teachers would need detailed lesson plans and adequate teaching materials ready on their hands.
2. Inadequacy of professionals and teaching staff: Almost no local teachers were trained to teach CSE. Expecting them to deliver quality lessons just based on a document of guidance is not possible.
As a result, 16 million students lack access to CSE in both public and private educational settings, especially in rural areas.
TeenUp democritizes CSE and addresses unmet need for SRHR so students grow up safe, health and happy: Through high-scalable modalities and their learner-centric approaches, TeenUp equip students and parents with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to grow into sexually healthy adults - capable of self-care, recognizing and tackling violence, healthy relationships, and a confident, kind, and respectful attitude toward themselves and their community.
Particularly, TeenUp plays a crucial role in addressing the unmet need for SRHR services, especially for students from families with low and middle income. Young people, especially girls and young women, are provided with accurate information on bodily autonomy, essential care, and informed choices about SRHR in a non-judgemental space. This enable them to overcome challenges from gender inequalities, social norms, economic disparities related to the lack of SRHR, as well as integrate SRHR practices into their daily lives.
Our primary students are adolescents aged between 8 and 18, representing the critical stages of youth development. To date, 28.000 students and a corresponding number of parents have been impacted. Their demographic include:
Gender: 51% male, 49% female
Geographic Diversity: 62.7% are from rural regions, while 38.3% are from urban areas.
Occupation: Since our primary users are students, their occupation is focused on educational pursuits. The students' parents represent a wide spectrum of professions, including professionals, educators, skilled workers, service providers and manual workers.
Income Diversity: Vietnamese households vary from low-income at USD$218.52/month to high-income at USD$1,660.79/month. Our users represent various socio-economic backgrounds and we offer diverse programs and pricing to make our services accessible across these income levels.
A. WeGrow comprises 27 young people (under 25) out of 39 staff members. The organization was founded and led by two young women (born in 1997 and 1998), also the two Co-founders of Vietnam Organization for Gender Equality, a leading youth organization on Gender Equality since 2016. Therefore, we greatly value the contribution of Vietnamese youth and welcome everyone regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, and origin.
B. Children and adolescents are the center of our programs. They contribute to the designing and programming through different feedback processes. This process includes 4 stages, which always ensure our programs are learner-centric:
Develop:
We conducted comprehensive assessments with locals schools, students, parents and students through survey, interviews and focus group discussions to understand their concerns and develop our programs.
Implementation:
We empower a diverse team both within and outside our organization, encouraging male teachers to participate in decision-making and promoting female teachers into leadership roles, especially at local schools.
Train of trainers (TOT) sessions enable teachers to understand the importance of feedback from fellow teachers and their students from all communities and backgrounds.
On-site lessons with WeGrow’s teachers to demonstrate and ensure expected learning experience for young students at partnered schools
Our classrooms provide equal opportunities for students of all genders, fostering a safe and empowering environment so all students can thrive.
Monitoring and evaluation (M&E):
We actively gather user feedback through survey, interviews and focus group discussions to prioritize effective youth engagement and gender inclusivity in our programs. Our surveys include specific questions assessing the impact of our product on individuals of different genders and age groups.
We commit to a continuous process of curriculum development, implementation, and M&E based on learners’ feedback ensuring that the program is ‘alive’ and able to accommodate the development of learners’ social context. It is meant to be for the youth, to develop with the youth, and to be operated predominantly by the youth.
- Prioritize infrastructure centered around young people to enhance young people’s access to SRH information, commodities and services.
- Vietnam
- Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model that is rolled out in one or more communities
1. Number of Students Reached: The cumulative total of students who have accessed our CSE as paid users.
+ 2021: 2864 students
+ 2022: 15789 students
+ 2023 YTD: 28832 students
2. No. teachers trained for CSE: The cumulative number of teachers completing CSE training of trainers program.
+ 2021: 20 teachers
+ 2022: 119 teachers
+ 2023 YTD: 377 teachers
A. The only CSE legalized and implemented at public schools: Sex-ed is often deemed highly sensitive as a topic and thus, challenging to be developed as a program that can comply with both international standards and local appropriateness. TeenUp has been the first and only to meet the criteria and be authorized by legal bodies to be implemented at public schools.
B. Unique positioning of our learning app in the edtech market of 16 million students: With the dynamic edtech market of 16 million students and worth of 3.4 billion dollars, our competitors primarily centers around academic and early years education. WeGrow gains a unique advantage by positioning in the big niche of adolescents for life skills and personal development. CSE and personal development will be the next new normal, in any country, just like English learning because of the increased living standards and the rapid changing context of digitalisation and AI. Therefore, WeGrow will remain as the first organization to lead this change in Vietnam.
C. TeenUp app enables us to revolutionize and universalize CSE to a large scale of students at standardized quality and maximize learning performance:
With TeenUp learning app, users (students) are placed in structured learning groups, simulating real classroom settings. Each group is assigned to a dedicated teacher who guides and monitors their progress. This innovative approach increases completion rate, setting us apart from other apps that solely offer self-paced learning.
Through technology, our operation is also enabled for massive scalability:
- Content Protection and Licensing Control: Robust technical measures to restrict unauthorized distribution, securing curriculum integrity. Also, by digitally managing student numbers at partnered schools, we curtail potential for misuse or fraud.
- Cost Democratization: Reduced marginal costs enable affordability for all, especially rural communities.
- Academic Oversight: Data and tools empower staff for monitor and support the learning journey of thousands to millions of students seamlessly, maintaining our commitment to quality education.
- Global Expansion Potential: Scalable infrastructure and culturally adaptable content for expansion.
Other key app features include:
- Interactive, Bite-sized Lessons: Engaging content for better retention.
- Quizzes: Regular assessments with scores saved into academic history.
- Asynchronous and Synchronous Learning: Self-paced or real-time sessions.
- Community Forum: Peer and expert support in a safe space.
- ChatGPT Integration: Addresses teens’ curious queries with accurate information.
- Learning Log, Parent's View, Support Live Chat.
- Offline access to support teachers with low internet connectivity
1. Our impact goals:
- For the following year: 100.000 students empowered with CSE knowledge, skills and attitude.
- For the next 5 years: 2 million students impacted, by expanding TeenUp to the South East Asian market through its learning app and implementing CSE as a mandatory subject at public schools across Northern Vietnam
2. Our plan to achieve these goals include:
- Launching 2 more branches in Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang: We will expand our impact across 3 regions of Vietnam (Northern - Central - Southern), and reassert our brand presence.
- Intensively acquiring partnerships with local schools across Vietnam: Doubling number of partner schools, teachers trained and students empowered annually
- Democratizing TeenUp app: Acquiring users from Vietnam’s edtech market of 16 million students through TeenUp learning app
- Integrating CSE into public education curriculum: Working with government authorities and educational institutions to integrate CSE to the public education curriculum
- Prepare for expansion to South East Asia through TeenUp app: Market research, local partnership, getting the app features mature, developing its multi languages.
TeenUp delivers CSE to students, parents, and teachers, empowering them to address sex and gender-related issues, and ensuring the sexual and mental well-being of students. It includes 6 stages as follow:
A. TeenUp development, integration and measurement: During this stage, we simultaneously engage in three core activities:
1. Curriculum development and upgrade: We continuously refine our curriculum and learning materials to align with three key criteria, which are:
- Officially certified in accordance with the Ministry's guidelines
- Learner-centric, youth-led with innovative pedagotrical methods
- Teacher-friendly and ready to use
2. Curriculum deployment: This phase entails recruiting and training teachers and staff to ensure the delivery of high-quality CSE
- Train-of-trainers online and offline sessions
- Quarterly follow-up and 24/7 live chat support
3. Learning app integration: The learning app enriches the learning experience for students, both in the classroom and at home. It encompasses various activities:
- Assisting teacher with materials: lesson plans, quizzes, live chat support, etc.
- Enriching students’ learning experience: lesson summary, Q&A sessions, extra learning materials, etc.
- Engaging parents: lesson summary, learning progress of their children, learning resources for parents, etc.
B. Effective CSE delivered to the community as a whole
C. Enhanced competences for students, parents and teachers
D. Empowered students, parents and teachers who can tackle sex and gender related issues
E. Ensuring the sexual and mental well-being of students
G. Monitoring and Evaluation for reporting and improvement of TeenUp
- Vietnam
- Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit
Fulltime staff: 39
Freelance teachers: 9
We founded WeGrow in 2020 and have been developing our CSE solutions for the last 3 years. Additionally, we have also advocated for Gender Equality by designing a range of solutions as Vietnam Organization for Gender Equality since 2016.
Extensive policies for women’s rights: With 29 out of 39 employees and both founders being women, our company culture extensively promotes women's right. Our policies ensure a friendly and convenient work environment for female employees, including menstrual leave, free menstrual products, work-from-home options, flexible work hours, gender-neutral bathrooms for inclusivity and internal events where employees can speak up their ideas to improve the workplace through presentation.
Community training for women’s safety: Our dedication promotes a safe and productive community, especially women and girls. This is achieved through different areas:
A. Advertising: Consent is required from all individuals to use their image in our advertising campaigns, as well as training on online safety for our staff and stakeholders.
B. Supply chain: Our supply chain partners are properly trained in human rights. They are encouraged to display signage regarding violence prevention and are regularly observed for reporting, based on their engagement and interaction to evaluate their capacity for safety.
C. Community: Parents and students are provided with guidance on women’s right, students safety, domestic violence and invited to on-site training programs designed to address these issues.
1. B2C Channel: Books, courses, camps and learning app
- Customers (parents) receive the bookset and get connected 1-1 with our online chatbox where they receive guidance on using the bookset, combined with our learning platform in the blended learning method. Students (children) are supported directly on Google Classroom where they get feedback on the work they submit. With books, students and parents consider it as a valuable resource to independently learn CSE at home, initiate difficult conversations, and accompany their childrens’ development journey.
- Courses and camps students join TeenUp directly under the scheduled classes, which consist under 20 students/class and taught directly by WeGrow’s experts and teachers. By enrolling courses at our centre, students and parents benefit from personalized and in-depth lessons, and timely guidance from our experts and teachers.
- Future app users will self-study in-app lessons while placed in learning group for simulation of real class, where dedicate teachers will help guide and monitor their learning progress to ensure completion rate and transformation results. With TeenUp learning app, students and parents from all socio-economic and geographic backgrounds across Vietnam will gain access to quality CSE, especially those from rural areas and lower class background.
2. B2B2C Channel: Courses taught by local teachers at partner schools
- Schools receive a deployment package, including teacher accounts, trainer workshops, and ongoing support through live chat, a hotline, and futher regular workshops. Students attend CSE lessons at their school, taught by local teachers, and supplemented by access to the TeenUp app for digital lessons aligned with the school curriculum.
- Individual consumers or stakeholders (B2C)
WeGrow's revenue model is multifaceted, designed to maximize impact and sustainability. Our streams encompass subscription model, school curriculum licensing, traditional tuition fees, cross-sales and grants. While the traditional revenue streams have been our primary income sources in the past, we are diversifying and expanding our revenue model to ensure long-term sustainability and scalability.
1. Subscription Model (B2C):
Our app offers tiered subscription plans granting access to our CSE content. These plans cater to varied learning needs, providing flexibility for each user. Parents pay from $5 to $10 per month for their kids and/or parents’ accounts, ensuring affordability and inclusivity. We ran a small pre-order campaign in August 2023 and will continue to soft launch in October. It is a cornerstone of our future sustainability.
2. School Curriculum Licensing (B2B2C):
We license our CSE curriculum to educational institutions, transforming CSE into a dedicated subject. Parents contribute $2 per month, with half benefiting the school and the other half directed to our organization.
3. Traditional Tuition Fees (B2C):
Historically, our main income source has been traditional tuition fees, encompassing courses, camps, and educational materials like books. These offerings have played an essential role in our journey, but we are actively diversifying to achieve mass scalability. Pricing ranges from $20 for books to $400 for courses or camps.
4. Upsales and Cross-sales (B2C):
Beginning in 2024, our strategic focus will be on upselling and cross-selling within our ecosystem. By offering additional features, premium content, and complementary services, we enhance customer value and generate additional revenue from our user base.
5. Grants: While grants have been a part of our funding strategy, they account for a small portion of our income. We actively seek grants to further our mission. These grants support specific initiatives, such as curriculum development, app creation, expanding our reach to underserved communities, and organizational strenthening. We are committed to self-sustainability, with a long-term vision of relying on our own revenue streams.
This multi-faceted revenue strategy ensures our financial resilience. The subscription model and school curriculum licensing are expected to gain prominence. As we evolve, we anticipate our revenue streams to continue adapting to market dynamics and user needs, enabling us to maintain our commitment to affordable and accessible sexuality education.