In Safe spaces: 

• A community organization or service provider creates opportunities for expansive conversations around gender, health, rights, equity, sex and sexuality.  
  • Spaces can be online or in person. They can be churches, community halls, homes, hairdressers, festivals or schools.  
  • Conversation-starters can include: “What do you want to learn about gender/sexual health/rights/equity/sexuality?” “Is there a myth about these topics that you once believed, but now know isn’t true?”  
  • Also see the Pleasure Principle ‘Talk Sexy’ [link to https://thepleasureproject.org/the-pleasure-principles/talk-sexy/] for ideas about how to start conversations around these topics, wherever you are. 
  • An example: The Healthy Love Workshop, organized by SisterLove in the U.S., offers a hands-on, culturally sensitive, community-based approach to sexual health and pleasure education. Its components—including the Healthy Love Party, Healthy Love Pregame, and Facilitator Training Program—create safe and supportive spaces where participants can engage in real conversations about HIV/STI prevention, sexual pleasure, and well-being, fostering both knowledge and confidence to make positive choices. 
• Organizations adopt a consciousness-raising approach. This approach supports individuals and groups to identify gender, sexual and relationship norms and inequities at play in their lives and communities and imagine positive alternatives for themselves. This might involve doing activities where participants are asked to reflect on topics, for example, “Complete this sentence: “A young man who has a condom in his pocket is…” and “A young woman who has a condom in her pocket is…”, and then compare the answers. 
• Spaces are facilitated or staffed by well-trained practitioners, with training in SRHR, sex and gender rights and equity. 
• Facilitators may share resources and information related to sexual well-being and gender rights and equity. 
• Young people are free and safe to discuss their sexuality and how they would like to experience and express it. 

Consider:

• What spaces for collective learning and conversation are available in your setting/ area/service? (resources) 
• How do you know if these spaces feel safe and supportive for participants? (individual awareness and competencies) 
• How do you know if these spaces can make waves towards greater gender equity and sexual well-being? (all levels) 

Review:

• Are resources available and/or used to create safe spaces or facilitate access to them? (resources) 
• Review what feedback data is already collected on a service/programme. Is there any data on whether service users feel safe, included, affirmed and/or listened to? (individual awareness and competencies, social norms) 
• Have any consultations been conducted locally that explore what people want from local services? Is there any data on how people want to be included, supported, listened to? (individual awareness and competencies) 
• Are there existing advocacy efforts or collaborations aimed at influencing policies, budgets, or institutional priorities to better support safe spaces? (policies and legal framework)

• In a group, write down or draw pictures of the ways that society pressures people to look or move a certain way, for example in sports, school, work, at the park; online, etc.). 
• Using your materials, create a body sculpture. See examples of how to do this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puVmet5hnc0. 
• Then try to capture some of the feelings or social pressures you discussed as a group. 
• If it feels right, work in pairs or small groups to look at each other’s body sculptures and try to guess what they are feeling or expressing. 
• If you are working online, ask people to take a photo of their creation and share it to an online platform such as Padlet, or to hold it up to the camera.

• Provide a series of images that express a variety of emotions or sensations. These can be printed on card or paper, or available digitally. You could use or recreate the CRUSH card images [Link to https://agendaonline.co.uk/crush-cards/] developed in Wales, UK (which are free to download) or generate a selection of images that speak to your context/region. Make sure you include some abstract images that don’t immediately connect with the themes of gender equity and sexual well-being, such as a wall, a shark, glitter or roots. 
• Spread the images out on a table or the floor so that everyone can see all the images at once. Or share them online using a digital platform such as Padlet. 
• Ask participants: Which image captures your experiences of taking part in the programme (or visiting the space, etc.)? 
• You can ask participants to write or share verbally why they chose that image. Ask how they felt in the group space if this doesn’t emerge from conversation. 
• Alternatively, you can provide blank paper/card and pens and invite participants to draw an image. 

This is a highly adaptable activity that involves asking participants to reflect on statements that represent stereotypes or myths related sexuality, gender and other relevant topics. 

Using a flip chart or large paper, write pairs of sentences, such as the following: 

• “A young man who has a condom in his pocket is…” and “A young woman who has a condom in her pocket is…” 
• “A young man who has had several sexual partners is…” and “A young women who has had several sexual partners is…” 
• “When a man seeks sexual health services it is most likely because…” and “When a woman seeks sexual health services it is most likely because…” 
• “Men who kiss other men are….” and “Women who have sex with other women are….” 

Ask participants to complete the sentences, either on their own pieces of paper, in small groups, or all together as a group, while you or another assistant writes their answers down. The responses can be written on the flip chart or on a white board.See also the Community mapping activity under Domain of Delight 6: Nurturing communities.