The National Sex Ed Week of Action starts on Monday, September 20 and runs through Sunday, September 26. This year, the action week is all about promoting comprehensive sex education and ending harmful abstinence-only programs. The goals of the National Week of Action are:
- Gather grassroots support to celebrate PREP sex ed funding and show support to end abstinence-only funding;
- Educate youth and families during the week with the information they need around comprehensive sex education;
- Help families communicate with their teens using comprehensive sex education models.
At The Center for Family Life Education, we are celebrating by distributing information about comprehensive sex ed at two health fairs and one parenting program. If you are wondering what you can do, here are some suggestions from Charlie Cook, Youth Outreach Manager with Planned Parenthood Federation of America:
- If the Governor of your state accepted PREP funding, host a letter writing party thanking your Governor.
- If your Governor accepted PREP funding, gather a group to make thank you calls.
- Send hand written letters to your members of Congress asking them to co-sponsor Senator Lautenberg and Representative Lee’s new bill to reject abstinence-only programs (bill has not been named as of today).
- Crowd canvass a high traffic area collecting postcard/signatures asking your legislator to cosponsor Senator Lautenberg and Representative Lee’s new reject ab-only bill.
- Find a parent, teacher, school official, or clergy member to submit an OP-ED expressing support for comprehensive sex education in your community.
- Have a college campus table and collect post cards asking your congressperson for their co-sponsorship of Senator Lautenberg and Representative Lee’s new reject ab-only bill.
- Hold a parent/teen communication workshop.
- Hold a movie viewing event, using a movie like “The Education of Shelby Knox”.
- Conduct a pub crawl in your area, bringing along literature about the importance of comprehensive sex education and condoms to give away.
- Schedule a meeting with your school board or decision makers at your school to talk about the importance of comprehensive sex ed as part of the curriculum.
