"We are ever evolving in our quest to remove embarrassment, stigma and fear around sexuality education," says Siti Aishah, the founder of Spot. Spot is a Malaysian NGO that provides workshops for young people, on a range of sexual health topics. Aishah and her team of volunteers have already taught more than 20,000 school children.
Aishah got started in this field to help protect children against sexual violence. Dr Rabiathul Badariah, a UNFPA certified comprehensive sexuality education trainer, points out that statistics show sexual crimes are on the rise amongst children.
Watch to find out what young people they really want to learn, how the school syllabus is improving and what are the obstacles to a healthy social understanding of sexual and reproductive health.
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Aishah got started in this field to help protect children against sexual violence. Dr Rabiathul Badariah, a UNFPA certified comprehensive sexuality education trainer, points out that statistics show sexual crimes are on the rise amongst children.
Watch to find out what young people they really want to learn, how the school syllabus is improving and what are the obstacles to a healthy social understanding of sexual and reproductive health.
Video produced by @TheFourth
WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news
SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar
LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline
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NewsTranscript
00:00 How can you talk further about sexual violence without talking about penis and vagina?
00:05 What they put pictures is they hide the genital organ behind pants and they put the label "penis".
00:10 How vagina look like? How penis look like?
00:13 If we don't respect it and we don't teach that medically accurate,
00:17 how can you start or normalise a conversation on sex?
00:20 You have to really be in depth.
00:22 You have to teach how does that happen? Why does it happen?
00:26 You can't just say like, "Yeah, sex makes babies, so avoid sex at a young age."
00:31 The moment you say don't do it, it's the first thing you're going to do.
00:34 There's a huge misconception that schools, teachers and the communities are ultra conservative
00:41 and they won't be able to accept our programmes.
00:44 It's actually the opposite. They are very open.
00:46 We provide comprehensive sexuality education.
00:54 We started in 2015 and we have since educated more than 20,000 young people.
00:59 And we are ever evolving in our quest to, of course, remove embarrassment, stigma and fear around sexuality education.
01:08 We have a programme called "Sexuality in the City"
01:11 where we talk about the importance of sexuality education in the city.
01:14 We have a programme called "Sexuality in the City"
01:16 where we talk about the importance of sexuality education in the city.
01:19 We have a programme called "Sexuality in the City"
01:21 where we talk about the importance of sexuality education in the city.
01:24 We talk about relationships.
01:27 We talk about sexuality. We talk about sex.
01:29 We talk about sexual health.
01:31 And we talk about boundaries, consent, the safe and unsafe touches.
01:35 We work with teachers, parents, young people, medical professionals, school counsellors
01:40 and other organisations in order to bring our programmes into schools
01:45 because we want to address the spectrum of tragedies that comes from not doing it.
01:51 [Music]
02:05 There are two types of sexuality education.
02:07 One is abstinent-based and the other is comprehensive-based.
02:10 So abstinent-based is the core value is abstinent, meaning no, say no.
02:15 Most of it is not medically accurate
02:18 because they believe that if you teach more information
02:21 it will tick the curiosity of the children so they will do more.
02:25 So instead of giving the information, they will try to hide the information.
02:29 But in comprehensive sexuality education, they also provide enough information,
02:33 medically accurate and age appropriate
02:35 so the person can make a decision and know that there are consequences.
02:39 [Music]
02:44 What I like about SPOT is that they really thrive to make a safe space,
02:47 make it so that no one is judging each other
02:50 because it's all really taboo topics so it's not really easy to talk about.
02:54 They'll give you really in-depth situations and they'll be like,
02:57 "What should person A do?"
02:59 I think at that time there was quite a few discussions.
03:02 You have to really think like, "Huh, okay, this is quite tricky, this is quite complicated."
03:08 Whereas PEERS, it was in the classroom and everyone's a bit on edge.
03:13 [Music]
03:18 [Students talking]
03:31 I am not a PGK trained teacher, but I am one of those teachers which set challenges.
03:37 We were asked to fill in all the loopholes in our timetable.
03:41 So basically when I don't understand anything, I will try to do my Google search.
03:45 If not, I will try to go and ask those PGK teachers because they are trained.
03:50 The way we implement it in class and how we plan our activities, it all depends on ourselves.
03:56 I think teachers should be trained.
03:58 Maybe we still find certain parts for us, shy, a bit ashamed to expose to the student.
04:05 When I first know that PEERS is in PGK, I was like stunned, you know.
04:11 I opened the textbook, I asked the PGK teacher, "They are teaching this in PGK now?"
04:18 If a student sees a PGK subject in the timetable, they will assume it's just playing ball.
04:25 Initially it was very difficult for me to divert them back to the classroom.
04:29 So I brought this classroom to the field. Surprisingly, certain students who are not focused in class,
04:35 sometimes they become very interested in the topic itself.
04:38 That will be our main topic for the day actually.
04:57 And you can see the statistics on rape, incest, sexual violence among children is increasing.
05:04 So that's also showing that although there was some sort of sexual education that was done,
05:09 whether it's a government effort or whether it's an NGO effort, it's still not enough.
05:12 So how come the people didn't know that incest is actually wrong?
05:16 I have this student of mine. Her mother remarried actually.
05:22 And then this girl is always afraid to go home because she used to be molested by her stepfather.
05:32 When she opened up, I sort of frightened and we were like hugging each other.
05:38 But I can't do much because I can only do as much as I can as a teacher.
05:43 And they are not daring enough to speak to anybody about it.
05:47 Because they are aware that if it's reported elsewhere, then they will lose their place to go.
05:53 We have played our role as a teacher to expose them to their peers.
05:57 The rest, it all depends on their parents and their family background.
06:02 I think I taught Malaika about sex ed when she was quite young, probably was about nine.
06:12 I think a lot of parents feel it's important, feel very uncomfortable to still talk about it.
06:19 But I think parents today, maybe they are always very careful in their approach.
06:24 I have a son and a daughter and we've had a full on Q&A session about sex,
06:31 both of them together in the same room because I do feel that it's important for my son to understand
06:36 how it works for women and for the girls to understand how it works for guys as well.
06:41 It's not like, "Oh, let's have a family talk right now and let's talk about sex."
06:46 No, it's always like whenever someone is unsure or has some question, it just opens up from there.
06:52 And if there was one thing that needs to happen in school,
06:56 to have more educators that are willing to listen without judgment.
07:01 We cannot just say, "Oh, haram, tak boleh, tak boleh." We say like that,
07:05 the kids will feel like, "What's wrong with these people?"
07:08 So we need to talk both ways. So that's a skill also for the trainer.
07:11 But again, that's where comprehensive education is age appropriate and culturally appropriate.
07:16 So you go to Islam community, you use different way.
07:20 You go to the international school, it's a different way.
07:22 We can actually share the value, not fostering, but share the value.
07:26 This is society value. This is our country value. This is also the Islamic value.
07:30 So now you have to think about your personal values.
07:32 So sport get the job to teach sex education in school with the support of ministry.
07:37 That's a beautiful part of it. NGO is there to complement the government.
07:41 What I feel that's needed the most is support for teachers.
07:46 I feel that teachers have the right intention,
07:49 but of course the system is not helpful for them to address sex and sexuality within their classroom.
07:58 We are doing this currently in hopes that one day we will be obsolete.
08:01 So there are efforts and people are making progress. We just need to push through.
08:06 Soka law just came in 2017, gladly.
08:08 Just recently we have anti harassment law.
08:11 So everything is just coming. Maybe we have to wait another 15 years.
08:14 I don't know which is sad, but that's the reality.
08:17 You are here today because your parents had sex.
08:25 And your grandparents had sex. And your parents had sex.
08:29 So that came from love. Not all sex is bad.
08:33 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:36 (upbeat music)