Firstly, we sought to educate children about sexuality from early childhood, following recommendations from the WHO and the Cologne Center for Health Education. Our goal was to promote healthy, aware, and balanced development through holistic sexual education that provides impartial and scientifically accurate information, fostering respectful and open attitudes for building equitable societies. To support the continuous training of educators working with children aged 6-9 on emotional and sexual literacy, and to enhance soft skills and inclusive, respectful attitudes, XSE had the following objectives: - Enable educators to adopt best practices and innovative methodologies to teach the cognitive, emotional, physical, social, and legal aspects of sexuality. - Deepen understanding and support for parenting, recognizing the crucial role families play in shaping gender stereotypes and emotional expression. - Enhance programs to strengthen soft skills through emotional literacy, proven to reduce bullying and sexual harassment, and improve self-esteem, conflict management, trust and cultural sensitivity.
We applied for the XSE Erasmus+ project to address the urgent need for proper sexual and affective education during puberty to primarily counteract misleading online contents, gender-based violence and health risks. In Italy, 44% of children aged 11-12 are exposed to pornography, much higher than the global average. This premature exposure distort their understanding of sexuality and relationships, leading to potential sexist and aggressive behaviors and compromising their emotional development. Given the long history of sexual education in some EU countries, Italy and Croatia still lacked comprehensive curricula. XSE aimed, and finally contributed, to bridge this gap by promoting international educator exchanges and introducing advanced sexual education programs in these countries. By adopting best practices from more progressive countries i.e. Finland, XSE sought to build cohesive European societies that value self-care and mutual respect from a young age via the development of concrete, transferable Open Educational Resources around emotional and sexuality education, tailored on the needs of educators and community members, such as parents, while being active with primary-age kids.