Charity to extend consent education in schools, online
A local charity says it will use funds from Operation Santa Claus 2023 to extend its healthy sexuality and consent education project to schools and online platforms. The "Magic Moments"-themed campaign, jointly organised by RTHK and the South China Morning Post, is raising funds for 16 charities which help disadvantaged people such as grassroots children and elderly, people with disabilities and victims of sexual violence. One of the charities is Teen's Key Hong Kong in Tsim Sha Tsui which helps young women access information, services and support for their sexual and reproductive health. This year, the charity will use OSC funds for their project, Key to Healthy Consent. It teaches safe sexual behaviour -- for example, asking and giving consent in intimate relationships. Due to increasing demand from other non-profit organisations and schools, the project also delves into topics like online dating and sexual violence, and debunks myths about them. Head of resource development Rachel Chow told RTHK's Maggie Wong that educating teens on consent is an urgent matter. "We found out many teenagers got many challenges or myths on how to retain healthy consent with their boyfriend, girlfriend or even intimate partners. We see the urgency to have these curriculum to teach them or invite our teens to express their myths and talk about it," she said. In the last year, the charity has helped more than 15,000 young people, something which Chow said was "not easy" to do.  "So we are grateful to have the funding so that we can further advance our curriculum on this kind of topic. Also, we can have extra manpower and resources to bring this curriculum to different schools and even make our curriculum online to engage more teenagers to talk about it." To find out more about Operation Santa Claus or to support the campaign, visit the Operation Santa Claus website.