Advocates For Youth (Advocates) champions efforts that help youth make informed, responsible decisions about their reproductive and sexual health. The organization believes strongly in both the right of young people to comprehensive, accurate reproductive and sexual health information and services, and in the power of youth development. Using its 3Rs Philosophy (Rights, Respect, and Responsibility), Advocates works to shift the societal paradigm of adolescent sexuality away from a negative emphasis on fear and ignorance toward the acceptance of sexual development as healthy and the belief that adolescents are a valuable resource. Staff provide information, training, and assistance to youth-serving organizations, policy makers, youth activists, and media in the U.S. and in low- and middle-income countries. The organization’s domestic and international initiatives provide a unique opportunity to disseminate “lessons without borders” within the adolescent reproductive and sexual health (ARSH) field.

“I love this initiative! In my 25 years at Advocates for Youth, I can truly say that AMAZE is one of my favorite projects! It’s fun and creative and meets young adolescents right where they are!  What a joy to be a part of something so innovative and yet so educational!”
– Deb Hauser, President, Advocates for Youth.

Website: http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/

Answer is a national organization that provides and promotes access to comprehensive sex education for young people and training for the adults who teach them. Answer is dedicated to ensuring young people have the knowledge and skills they need to be happy, healthy and safe well into the future. For more than 35 years, Answer has helped adults be the best sexuality educators they can be by providing the latest resources, most current information and best practices for reaching and teaching the youth in their lives. Answer’s signature publication, Sex, Etc., is a teen-written sexual health magazine and website which reaches over two million young people every year with honest, accurate sexual health information and resources.

“Answer is committed to centering the voices of young people in everything we do; being a partner in AMAZE provides another opportunity for us to do just that. AMAZE builds on Answer’s legacy of leveraging technology to deliver sexual health information in a format that resonates with teens. Through AMAZE, we are thrilled to be reaching a critical and often overlooked audience of younger adolescents.”

Website: http://answer.rutgers.edu/

YTH (Youth+Tech+Health) is an initiative of ETR, specializing in youth-centered health design that advances the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and wellness of young people using new media and technologies. ETR advances health equity by designing science-based solutions and the goal of the YTH Initiative is to develop innovative solutions for youth health and wellness. YTH is the partner of choice for those in search of new ways to advance the health of youth and young adults through technology. YTH drives change by creating, evaluating, and refining technology solutions and providing partners with proven models ready for scale and replication and also build the capacity of the community to advance youth health by providing research, training, idea generation, and expert advice. YTH has pioneered many digital solutions to reach youth with information and services where they want it and when they need it.

Bhupendra Sheoran serves as the Managing Director.

“AMAZE does indeed take the weird out of sex ed. YTH is fortunate to be working with adolescents and the other Amaze partners in this pioneering campaign to reach adolescents and their adult allies with authentic and real sexual health information”
– Bhupendra Sheoran

Website: http://yth.org/

IPPF/Western Hemisphere Region sees Amaze as an opportunity to engage parents and teachers around Comprehensive Sex Education geared towards younger adolescents, and to support them with the online resources they need to do so. They are planning to establish a competitive RFP process among their affiliates in Latin America, that would eventually disseminate info as well as incentivize the uptake of Amaze across their affiliates in Latin America. The affiliates would submit proposals for how they would pilot the videos in their countries. Their goal is to award the funds to 1-2 in-country partners that put forth the best ideas to pilot the videos in their local contexts.
In their Spring Newsletter, Giselle Carino, the new IPPF/WHR Regional Director made the following comments:

“Today we are positioned to amplify this progress under our new strategic plan, which commits to reaching more than five million young people in the Americas and Caribbean with quality sexuality education by 2022. While ambitious, I have no doubt that we will do for sexuality education what we did for family planning more than sixty years ago: create a culture in which sexuality education is viewed as an essential part of gender equality and social development for our nations; an investment that helps governments, communities and families challenge the harmful gender norms that perpetrate a culture of violence; reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, and ultimately, create happier and more equitable societies. I have no doubt we will achieve our goals. We have a strong, imaginative team of staff, volunteers, and allies like you that are dedicated, determined, and open to new approaches and innovative ideas. We have solid partnerships with sister organizations, academic institutions, and governments, and unwavering support from dedicated funders.”

Website: https://www.ippfwhr.org/en

UNFPA is the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. Our mission is to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.

The TVSMITHS is a proudly African content producer specializing in entertainment. The company conceptualizes and executes content such as advertising campaigns and corporate videos, but focuses mainly on television series of an educational or entertainment nature. Its largest market is South Africa, with work in DRC and Nigeria, and extended recently to Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA). Within this territory The TVSMITHS produces “edutainment” programs and campaigns for broadcast and digital clients, providing key learning outcomes through imaginative and compelling stories that capture the hearts and minds of Africans.

The TVSMITHS is proud to work with all the AMAZE partners to ensure that sexuality education in Africa is advanced through the creation of both original videos and the repurposing of existing videos from the United States. The company also curates and implements the digital conversation calendar for AMAZE South Africa, aimed at children aged 10 to 14, as well as their parents and caregivers on AMAZE Parents Africa. This is achieved in collaboration with its client, Advocates for Youth, and its local technical partner, the United Nations Population Fund. “The South African market is highly segmented because of the country’s apartheid history, which has created extreme levels of inequality in terms of wealth and education. Grappling with this challenge for many years has taught us how to reach diverse audiences, and we aim to use this experience to create meaningful and engaging content that speaks beyond the borders of South Africa to every AMAZE child, parent and caregiver on the continent.” – Anthony Wayment-Nel, CEO.

Website: www.thetvsmiths.media

AOOSUNG was founded in 2003 and works to enable South Koreans to have improved knowledge about sexual health and sexuality and lead healthy lives. AOOSUNG develops resources for educating teachers, parents and teenagers about youth development and sexuality and provides sexuality education and counseling to young people, including lower-income youth and victims of sexual violence.

PILCON is a nonprofit organization in Japan which expands the sexual health education learned from a dialogue. Aiming to realize a society that enables everyone to build good relationships and choose their own ways of life, it was founded by Asuka Someya, in 2013. PILCON stands for: Program for Ideal Life through Communication & Networking. We disseminate information on sexual health and wellness. We also provide programs to help everyone realize their own ideal life and lifestyle by promoting communication through workshops and establishing social resource networks. Now we implement sexual health education programs for youth and parents.

Website: https://pilcon.org/

DKT Mexico has been an incredibly valuable resource as we begin to test out our messaging and how best to market our videos to an international audience.

Website: http://www.dkt.com.mx/

Projet Jeune Leader is a youth-founded, youth-led, and youth-centered organization in Madagascar striving to transform the lives of young Malagasy adolescents through comprehensive sexuality education. They run an innovative, multi-component, school-based comprehensive sexuality education program in public middle schools in Madagascar.

Website: http://www.projetjeuneleader.org/

Tasaseks is a Finnish startup founded by a basic education teacher and authorized sexuality educator Sofia Lind. Tasaseks has a mission to revolutionize comprehensive sexuality education in Finland by making it more student centric with a sound, pedagogical approach. Tasaseks engages students with games, videos, experiential learning and drama approaches that make sex ed fun, not only for the students but for their teachers too. Currently, the pedagogical materials are only in Finnish but the team is working towards a multilingual future, hoping to make sex ed fun everywhere.

Tasaseks trains teachers around the country in Finland with workshops on active learning approaches in sexuality education. They work together with multiple Regional State Administrative Agencies, teacher student organizations, municipalities, and the University of Helsinki.

Founder Sofia Lind on sexuality education in Finland:

”In order to reach a more equal and comprehensive sexuality education reality, we need to ensure that every teacher knows about the benefits of sex ed. Tasaseks provides training to as many teachers as possible and pedagogical materials that guide educators at the same time as they activate learners.”

Website: www.tasaseks.fi
Instagram in English @tasaseks_sexed