The idea for this project came from a teen who was staying at a Crisis Residential Center (homeless shelter for teens) in Seattle. The center does great work by providing shelter and meeting basic needs for teens who are in a housing crisis. One of their programs provides Sex Education classes with volunteers & staff from Scarleteen (scarleteen.com). One of the teens in class commented that the education was great, but that it was really hard to keep all the appropriate materials for safe sex together when you’re in an unstable housing situation. This spawned the idea of a personal “safe sex kit” that would discreetly hold all the right items.
Scarleteen staff created a prototype to hold condoms, dental dams, lube, birth control, gloves, and cleansing cloths that could easily be sewn together by the teens themselves and other volunteers. The grant will be used to provide materials for the kits as well as for printing educational materials included in the kit. This kit would works hand in hand with the education Scarleteen already provides at the center as well as other locations the Seattle Area. Teens that receive the kit will also get a copy of the book “S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and College” written by Scarleteen founder Heather Corinna. We’re super excited that by using the grant, they’ll be able to produce 50+ kits to distribute by the end of 2012, and scale from there. We also just learned that Trojan donated several cases of condoms for these kits so our grant is already inspiring others to join in on this project!
If you’d like to know more about Scarleteen check out their web site at www.scarleteen.com or check out this cool video made by one of Scarleteen users.
