Birds and Bees- Launching a Sex Ed Zine!

Here in the province of Quebec in Canada, the government essentially eliminated sex education from the curriculum, effective January 1, 2005. Instead, teachers are supposed to "infuse" it throughout the curriculum. French teachers are being given workshops on how to do so, to date English teachers are not. It's not a mandated thing, it's really up to individual schools to apply as they see fit. As you can imagine, most teachers don't feel comfortable teaching sex ed, so if it isn't a requirement, it isn't going to happen. In Canada, most students already report less than two hours of sex education throughout their entire high school career. This move makes safe spaces for youth to have meaningful learning about sex education even more diminished. Quebec, incidently, has the highest rate of youth having unprotected sex in the country.

One of the activist community groups that is doing something positive and proactive about this in Montreal is Head and Hands, who are introducing The Sense Project into schools this September. The Sense Project is going into several Montreal area schools and will be delivering sex education programs taught by trained community volunteers, and will be training youth to be peer sexualities educators as well. They're doing a fantastic job, and this is really important work.

On July 15th, The Sense Project will be launching The Birds and the Bees - A Sex Ed Zine as a fund raiser and awareness project. All you Montrealers, come out to the Sala Rossa (4848 St-Laurent) to show your support for the healthy growth of sexual health education in this province. Doors open at 8 pm, and ten bucks will get you in AND a copy of the new sex ed zine, with all proceeds going to The Sense Project.

Some of the featured lineups on the evening's roster of entertainment include:


- Performances by People for Audio, Nightwood, City of a Hundred Spires and Anti-School Year

- A panssexual kissing booth

- Circus acts

Come out and show your support for this important cause! See you there :-)