Dear Sex Squad friends and allies,

Thanks to your generous support during our February Spark campaign, we exceeded our goal of raising $10,000 for our High School Sex Squad program. We could not have done it without you!

With your donations, we have been able to fund key initiatives of the program throughout 2018. In April, we produced the third annual High School Sex Squad Festival, a day of arts activism and performance with each of the Squads in our youth program. Your support also created resources for our health teachers and adult allies, who implement our Sex Squad program in their schools each year and make our work possible. And, in September, we brought Jasmine onto our team as a teaching artist to mentor our Monroe High School Sex Squad. Attached to this update you will find pictures from our high school engagements as well as a bio from Jasmine! Please check them out!

We are so grateful to our community for making these great things possible. If you believe in our programs, please consider donating to our current Spark campaign by clicking here! Unlike previous years, we started our 2019 campaign early to be able to fund the 2019 Sex Squad tour in February. We hope to receive your support again.

Thank you for believing in our work, and for helping to make Los Angeles a safer place for our youth! 

With appreciation,

The UCLA Art & Global Health Center team

Dear AGHC contributors and supporters,

It is with great pleasure that we invite you to the third annual High School Sex Squad Festival, taking place on Friday, May 4th.

Throughout the year, we work with four incredible groups of high school students to produce arts activist interventions on sexual health issues. Our students receive training in sexual health education, creative expression, and leadership. This all culminates in the High School Sex Squad Festival, where each of our High School Sex Squads perform for each other and connect with their peers at other LAUSD sites.

Your generous donations made this Festival possible, so please come celebrate with us and cheer on the students as they take the stage in UCLA’s Kaufman Hall. You may join us for the full day, 10:30am - 3pm, or come specifically for the performance section of the day, 11am–12pm.

Please let us know if you would like to attend by emailing gbonder@arts.ucla.edu!

Details: 

Friday, May 4th

10:30am - 12pm (full workshop)

11am-12pm (performances)

UCLA Kaufman Hall Room 208

We hope to see you there!

With gratitude,

Gabrielle Bonder and the staff of the UCLA AGHC

Dear Spark supporters,

A week ago, 200 LA public high school students descended on the UCLA campus to spend a day with one another, feeling safe, having fun, and building community. This was the LGBTQ theme day for Project U, a collaboration of the LAUSD HIV/AIDS Prevention Unit and the UCLA Art & Global Health Center.   A peak moment for me was when two seniors from Monroe High School shared the goofy games they organize with fellow students as part of their school-wide work with health teacher Leticia Jenkins: speed-hanging bras on a clothesline to highlight breast self-inspection; throwing nerf footballs while practicing short statements about sexual consent; and best of all, playing pin the nipple on the breast. What a hoot!  

It is now day two of the countdown to our Spark campaign, with $3,000 still to go. We’re so close! Your contribution enables our work at Monroe, led by staffer Veline Mojarro, and also supports their teacher Ms. Jenkins’ contributions as a trainer of fellow health teachers. And when the students at Monroe tell us they want to start their own High School Sex Squad—which they begged of us this week—your dollars are what make it possible.  

Thanks for contributing to Spark!  

David Gere Director,

UCLA Art & Global Health Center

Hi Everybody,

This is Elisabeth Nails writing, special advisor to the UCLA Art & Global Health Center. My UCLA Master of Social Welfare graduate student program is expanding my perspective, and I consider the work High School Sex Squads are doing on-site at LAUSD schools is part of an important cultural transformation taking place in our society. The inclusive arts-activist Sex Squad approach allows High School students to identify and explore their own urgent topics. It trains youth to step up and become the peer-led leadership that communities need. 

In the wake of the tragic Florida school shooting, I am deeply inspired by the youth-driven leadership of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Emma González and her peers. Their courage and conviction remind me of what is possible when youth are empowered to connect with their voices and take action. As the SPARK campaign draws to a close, I am reflecting on powerful moments in Sex Squad rehearsals and performances when a squad member reveals a truth, and an entire room of peers explodes in a gesture of recognition and appreciation. Conversations are sparked through art and the high school squads can help them to continue on high school campuses all year long. Supporting the High School Sex Squads is more than a generous gesture, it is a means of taking direct action to improve the sexual health of our culture. If you have supported the campaign, thank you—you are amazing. For those who are still contemplating, please make a gift of any size today. Invite others to back the High School Sex Squads and I guarantee you’ll feel sooooo good!

Warmly,

Elisabeth Nails

Only seven days left in our Spark campaign! 

That's right, there's only one week left to support the High School Sex Squad program! Will you help us reach 100%? High School Sex Squads make incredible work on their campuses that spreads vital knowledge about sexual health. Each year, these four troupes make hilarious skits, heart wrenching poems, and ridiculously creative songs about their experiences, and in doing so empower and inspire their peers. Last year, we had the incredible privilege of filming one of the Wilson High School Sex (Ed) Squad's pieces, called "Flo-chella." This piece teaches you the six fluids that transmit HIV (when no barrier method is present) in a hilarious and original way.

Please share the film and help us reach 100%! Working with the High School Sex Squads teaches us something new every day, and we've seen that their peers learn a lot from them too. That's why we need you to back our campaign! We want to expand this program to more schools next year, but we need resources to do so! Backing our campaign means that we will be able to give more and more students exposure to the life-giving work of Sex Squads. Please donate today! 

With gratitude,

The UCLA Art & Global Health Center

To our community of supporters,  

48% of our goal raised! We’re nearly halfway there!

Thank you for all of your amazing support of our Spark campaign these last few weeks, and for believing in our work! We’re off to a great start and we could not have done this without you.  

If you haven’t donated yet, now’s your chance! Please visit our Spark page here.

Stories like Alex’s are the reason we need the High School Sex Squad program:

Alex was a freshman at Taft High School when the UCLA Sex Squad came to perform there during their winter tour. She was so inspired by the UCLA students that she contacted her health teacher, imploring that Taft High School needed their own Sex Squad. Together, Ms. Brownell and Alex started the very first High School Sex Squad at Taft. Now, years later, we have four High School Sex Squads (including Taft) who work tirelessly on their home campuses to bring sexual health education through the arts to their peers. Alex has since graduated from Taft, and now is turning her passion for sexual health education into a career. We met her at Planned Parenthood’s LA headquarters last weekend, where we performed and did a workshop for their Peer Advocates. Alex told us that she is currently pursuing her teaching credential in Health, and works at Planned Parenthood as one of their interns in the Peer Advocates program. She says that being in the High School Sex Squad program gave shape to her future goals, and she carries the experiences and knowledge gained from the program with her as she forges her own path towards making sexual health education more engaging, equitable and fun!

We are so inspired by Alex, and we know she’s not alone! Students across LAUSD benefit year-round from the High School Sex Squad program. We need your support to give this program a better, more sustainable future. Funding our Spark campaign means that more students from more schools will be able to benefit from the tremendous work of the Sex Squad, celebrate with us at the High School Sex Squad festival, and benefit from the mentorship and guidance of adult allies at their schools. We need your help to support students like Alex!

A special shout out goes to these amazing individuals, whose contributions have kickstarted our campaign’s success: 

Perryn Reis

Tom & Davidson Keegan-Lloyd

Janna Shadduck-Hernandez

Marcos & Mari Milla

Melissa Papp-Green

Jeremy & Howie Gordon

Thank you for considering donating to our campaign! If you’ve already donated and want to support us further, consider posting on social media or email about why you support the work of the Sex Squads and the Art & Global Health Center.  

Best wishes,

The UCLA Art & Global Health Center staff