“Eftah Bab” Campaign Discusses the Importance of Sex Education For Today’s Parents
By Nada Hamouda
Recently, Egypt has been facing a dangerous ghost roaming around children; sexual abuse. Thus, young Egyptian students of Misr International University decided to launch a campaign about sexual education as part of their graduation project. The campaign aims to raise the parents’ awareness about the importance of sexual education.
Due to many things that happen in schools and the way our society usually choose to ignore discussing this subject, the group picked the lack of sexual education. Moreover, kids could rely on different unsafe sources. Believing that parents should start discussing with their kids how to dignify their bodies from a very young age, they named their project “Eftah Bab,” Arabic for “Open The Door”.
Eftah Bab campaign empowers parents with knowledge and guide to open the door of communication about sexual education with their children from 6-10 years old. “Unlike what our culture might think, it was proven that kids who receive proper sexual education are less likely to engage in sexual activities or harmful behaviors,” Said Nereen Ahmed, one of the students that adopted the campaign.
“We are working to launch all possible tools like books, e-books, episodes, social media, and website to educate parents and empower them with knowledge in order to be able to educate their children well about sexual education,” Ahmed explained.
Statistics showed that 90% of the teenagers’ first sources of information were outer sources like sexual websites, friends, and internet, which can never be fully credible and reliable.
“Finally, there is an important message parents should get which is that their children might be exposed to any sexual information anytime and anywhere. There are no boundaries or rules, so instead of having the mindset of ‘Not my child’ please think ‘Maybe my child’,” Said Nadeen Hossam.
The group managed to partner with “Save the Children” organization as it’s willing to adopt the campaign to reach a larger people turning it into a public social campaign instead of just a students’ project.
