Our primary goals of implementing the P4I Project were to address the pervasive neglect of sexual education for individuals with an intellectual disability within the educational systems of the partner countries. With the executed studies, including the needs analysis and benchmark report, we realised that socio-cultural influences, community structure, and prejudices had led to the omission of sexual education for people with disabilities in the curriculums of the partner countries. We learnt also that teachers and educators played important roles, but had too little knowledge about the topic.Because of this, our objectives included: • Making sexual education accessible for children with disabilities through the development of various educational methods with the use of technology.• Providing non-formal education for teachers and parents of children with disabilities, so that these can approach the topic easily and informed.• Breaking the taboo surrounding sexual education and normalising the discussion of sexual behaviour. • Preventing sexual abuse as well as the spread of stereotypes regarding people with individuals and sexual education through education.• Exchanging experiences and best practices between different countries.
With this project, we wanted to address the need of sexual education for people with disabilities. We were aware of the fact that people with disabilities are confronted by marginalisation and that issues they face, including a lacking sexual education, are often overlooked. Students with disabilities need to have access to sexual education to be able to understand the concept of sexuality, recognise the changes they experience during puberty, avoid abuse, and more. We believed it was essential to adapt sexual education to the needs and concerns of people with individuals, because they experience challenges that people without disabilities do not experience.Also, the idea of enabling the collaboration of parents and teachers of children with disabilities, who both play an important role in their sexual education, intrigued us, as we thought that those involved in education should adopt complementary roles to maximise the value of the education the children receive. Before the P4I project,ARSU Academy and the other partners had already implemented projects that addressed the problems and needs of disadvantaged people.This experience prepared us for tackling the sexual education of people with disabilities and motivated us to do so.