OUR CURRENT GOALS: 

• Provide relevant and effective sexual health education to Vietnamese high school students

• Conduct anonymous surveys gauging Vietnamese high school students’ understanding of topics related to sexual health and sexuality

• Collaborate with Vietnamese college students to create a culturally-sensitive curriculum emphasizing those topics found to be most crucial by these surveys

• Beyond purely factual information, we weave in personal narratives expressed through the dance, music, and theater to enable discussions that would otherwise be uncomfortable, unrelatable, and ineffective

• Execute sex ed workshops at as many high schools as possible, beginning with Sài Gòn, Việt Nam

• Work with local high school teachers to support the continuation of these programs, whether this mean semi-annual refreshers or support for students inspired to continue art activism for even younger students

• Contribute to a growing body of research on the effectiveness of art-based sexual education that has already begun to take off in Los Angeles with UCLA Sex Squad. This will be a rigorous, IRB-approved investigation of our work.

• Maintain an online forum where anyone may ask questions and receive answers regarding their concerns about sexual health resources or experiences

• Establish a physical base in Sài Gòn where future volunteers or students may seek information and resources

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

METHODS

OVERVIEW: INITIAL TRIP 2015

• Hold trial sex ed workshops at RMIT University in collaboration with student clubs on campus

• Conduct anonymous surveys at various universities and high schools in Sài Gòn

• Team up with charity groups serving rural villages in southern Việt Nam and Đà Nẵng

• Recruit, interview, and begin training Vietnamese college students interested in leading WISEN in Việt Nam

 

WORKSHOPS

While the Vietnamese culture has created an environment that avoids and discourages open discussion of sex, the youth remain exposed to media often negatively or incorrectly depicting sex and sexually transmitted diseases. Our workshops were mindfully structured in order to create a safe space for students to actively engage, reflect, question, discuss, and clarify misguided beliefs about these topics. Inspired by the interactive workshops of UCLA Sex Squad, the structure of our workshops progress from warm up theater and group bonding games to written reflection exercises, educational and narrative artistic performances on safe sex, consent, and HIV/AIDS, exercises based on Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed, and finally a guided group performance by students themselves.