Organizing & Campaigns
Survivors who graduate our leadership program - Healing Generations - go on to lead grassroots initiatives in their communities that address the root causes of gender-based violence.
The Sex Ed Works Campaign
Launched in 2019, Sex Ed Works is our first survivor-led campaign that seeks to prevent gender-based violence for the next generation of Black and brown youth in Chicago by ensuring that the third largest school district in the country - Chicago Public School (CPS) - provide youth to high-quality, comprehensive sexual health education, regardless of zip code.
Wait, isn't sex ed working?
Chicago Public School data shows that 2 in 3 schools are not implementing sexual health education in compliance with the CPS mandatory comprehensive sexual health education policy.​
Many of those schools are disproportionately in Chicago’s South and West side neighborhoods.
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We want that to change and are asking CPS to:
​Fund the implementation of comprehensive sexual education, ensuring all schools have actual dollars towards training educators, providing support for staff and caregivers, and ensuring youth have access to high quality materials.
Support caregivers by helping them understand key concepts like consent, providing meaningful opportunities to ask questions and engage with educators, and giving them tools to navigate conversations with youth.
Accountability to caregivers, youth, educators, and community members by ensuring these stakeholders have oversight in the implementation of comprehensive sexual education, and can provide feedback on the curriculum, educator training, and more.
​“We need to recognize that what CPS is offering now is not enough to make sure that our young people have their own agency and power to make their own decisions…they have to integrate us more into the CPS community. Our kids are the future.”
- Gladys de la Torre
​“We — teachers, caregivers, community members, elected officials, everyone — need to invest in more community-led efforts so that our children can live in a world free from violence, a world where they can thrive and not just focus on surviving poverty and the police.”
- Maria Serrano
