The BetterSex.Education Manifesto
This campaign is the product of a perceived incongruence between the British social values of tolerance, inclusion and progressiveness, and the real state of affairs concerning sex education in schools. Not only is there an obligation upon government to provide young people with the foundations for a healthy social life, but the failures of the current curriculum are gaining in severity, owing to the growing gap between what is taught, and what is actually experienced by young people.
From initial conception, the strategy underpinning this campaign can be divided into three stages: the consolidation of support, popular dissemination and exerting political influence. These broadly represent three separate aspects of the strategy, and are not necessarily consecutive. Through the completion of these three stages, the campaign hopes to achieve each of the objectives outlined on our website.
Consolidation of Support
The first stage of the campaign seeks to create a firm core of volunteers, supporters and contacts, whose network can be used to further the aims of the campaign. As the campaign is not-for-profit, the incentive to join or support is purely based on agreement with the campaign’s principles. Involvement is not limited by occupation, interests or any other qualities, and we aim to establish a broad variety of initial support. The consolidation of support also needs to be accordant to the channels through which we aim to disseminate the campaign, which includes publicity and news media; events, music and the arts; and politics. Although we have begun expanding the project through our immediate friends, we plan on contacting people of interest who have already expressed similar views, and are also open to any external offers of support.
Popular Dissemination
Once we have the capacity to disseminate our campaign through the mentioned channels, we will embark upon spreading the message of the campaign to as great an audience as possible. Whereas this will initially seek to appeal to those who are already of our view, we hope to be able to convince and educate those who have not considered the detrimental impact that poor sexual education is having at the moment. This shall be done through avenues such as music, the arts, news media, social media, and events organised by the campaign team. This includes encouraging musicians, artists and writers to support our aims, as well as incorporating the message into their own works.
Exerting Political Influence
Once we have a strong core with an accessible, wide audience, we will use these to our advantage in achieving a desired political outcome. The political landscape which we are attempting to influence is one which is favourable to our cause, owing to the successes of previous campaigns and charity efforts. The Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats have both openly supported compulsory sex and relationship education in the past, and therefore mounting pressure upon the Conservative party and Scottish National Party will hopefully result with cross-party support. Once there is some form of implementation, we hope to assist with committee consultations and recommendations so that compulsory sex and relationship education is relevant and informative.
Prospective Timeline
We hope to formally organise the team by late February 2017, have a launch night in April 2017, and begin seeing real political outcomes from June 2017. For further details about our plan for the campaign roadmap, contact us using our website.
