Brave Spaces

What this course is about

Most sexual education projects assume you are allowed to deliver sexual education. In much of Europe, you are not — or only partly, or only if nobody complains.

We have run two projects on this topic. A youth exchange, Youth for a Healthy Sexual Life, with 45 young people from Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Hungary and Lithuania. And a small-scale partnership, Safe and Sound: Enhancing Youth Knowledge on Sexual Health and Diversity (2024-3-RO01-KA210-YOU-000296286), with partners in Spain and Bulgaria, which produced a tested toolkit, 17 workshops with 622 young people, and a survey of more than 300 young people.

Two findings from that work shaped this course. First: in Bulgaria our partners could not legally address sexual diversity in schools at all, and had to redesign their workshops around that constraint. Second: when we asked young people what stood in their way, they did not say "information". They said shame, fear of being judged, and adults who do not understand.

So this training course is not about the content of sexual education — that content already exists, including in our own toolkit. It is about the professional practice of delivering it in contested environments:

facilitating conversations on sexuality, consent and relationships in a group, safely
safeguarding: what to do when a young person discloses abuse, an unwanted pregnancy, or self-harm during a session
working with gatekeepers — parents, school directors, local authorities, religious communities
adapting content to real legal limits without abandoning the young people who need it
responding to backlash, online and offline
reaching young men, whom our own survey reached far less than young women
Who we are looking for

Two organisations, to complete a partnership of seven. Already confirmed: Romania (coordinator), Bulgaria, Italy, Hungary, Spain.

1. One organisation from a country with an established comprehensive sexuality education practice — for example Estonia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Finland or Portugal — willing to share concrete methods and act as a resource for the whole group. National sexual and reproductive health NGOs are very welcome, as long as your educators work directly with young people.

2. One organisation from a country where sexual education faces strong legal, institutional or cultural restriction — for example Poland, Slovakia, Croatia, Lithuania or Latvia.

Organisations new to Erasmus+ KA1 are explicitly welcome. We will walk you through the paperwork.

Requirements
registered non-profit organisation, NGO, social enterprise or public body in an EU Member State or a third country associated to the Programme
a valid OID, or willingness to register in the Organisation Registration System by mid-September 2026
you work with young people directly and regularly at local level
you can send 4–5 youth workers who actually work with young people — not board members, and not students recruited for the occasion
your organisation commits to running at least one local activity on the topic within 4 months after the course, and to reporting on it
you are comfortable with content that includes LGBTQ+ inclusion. If national law limits what you can deliver at home, that is not a problem — it is exactly what this course is about. But we need to know it before we apply, not discover it mid-project.
your organisation will be part of no more than 4 other applications to this action for the 1 October 2026 deadline (the programme limit is 5 per organisation per deadline, and exceeding it makes the whole application ineligible)

What you get
full coverage of travel, accommodation, meals, venue and materials, according to Erasmus+ unit costs
Youthpass certificates for your participants
co-authorship of the facilitator handbook produced by the project, published under an open licence
a partnership with an organisation that has implemented over 300 Youth in Action and Erasmus+ projects since 2013, has coordinated more than 10 KA2 partnerships, and has been ESC-accredited for sending and hosting since 2016 (2019-1-RO01-ESC52-077697)
How to reply

Send the following to contact@tinerii3d.ro by 23 August 2026:

organisation name, country, OID, website and social media
5–10 lines on your work with young people, and on sexual education specifically — if you have no track record on this topic, say so; willingness matters more than a portfolio
3–4 lines on the legal and practical situation of sexual education in your country
how many applications to this action your organisation will be part of for the 1 October deadline

We will confirm the final partnership by 23 August 2026.