The Young Sex Educators Forum (性教育青年工作者论坛), also known as the You-Me Forum (你我论坛), was held in Beijing on July 27th. The forum, founded by Marie Stopes China Office, is one of the most influential conferences on sex education in China. After the successful first forum in 2014, the 2015 forum – sponsored by the UN Population Fund, Marie Stopes International, China Population Welfare Foundation, Ford Foundation, National Health and the Family Planning Commission – marched onto an even bigger stage and provided a comprehensive platform for dialogues and discussions on sex education. Interest groups including the government, NGOs, media and businesses together with young sex educators discussed the development of sex education in China.
At the opening ceremony, You-Me Youth Health Fund (你我健康青春基金), the first fund in Chinese youth reproductive health, was officially launched. Other than program presentations and expert panels, this year’s forum also added dialogues, where participants from various sectors discussed issues such as unwanted pregnancies. Hua Yu, the deputy director of China Population Welfare Foundation and Liqing Liu, chief representative of Marie Stopes International both delivered speeches at the forum. Together they advocated for using the You-Me forum as a platform for sex educators, especially young sex educators, to cooperate and to voice their opinions. It will also open doors to help the government, the media and professional institutions better understand the issues. They also hoped that more and more people would support the mainstreaming of youth sex education and push for the healthy development of Chinese youth sex and reproductive health.
