Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast Education Internship
By: Emery Haynes
I completed my second semester working at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in their education department this spring. Through this experience, I was able to expand my knowledge of sexual education and form relationships with other leaders and organizations involved in reproductive justice.
This semester, I collaborated on PPGC’s new Starting Early Curriculum. I worked, along with another intern, on identifying children’s books that could be utilized as age-appropriate sex education tools, wrote up learning objectives, created talking points, and designed a workbook. Sex education isn’t allowed in public schools of Louisiana as it is an abstinence-only state. This means many children are not receiving sex education, and organizations like Planned Parenthood cannot go into the schools to try and provide this education. This is why PPGC felt the need to create a curriculum to share with the public. While I was unable to finish this project before the semester ended, the project will continue after me, and I will even be listed as a collaborator in the workbook.
In addition to working on this project, I was able to create relationships with the organization GrowDat as well as many young leaders in reproductive justice through PPGC’s TeenREACH program. It was so inspiring to work with these two groups and to see young members of the community so involved in social justice and activism.
Finally, during my time at PPGC this semester, I was able to attend and present at a collaborative event called Vagina Tales at a local waxing studio. At this event, we were able to inspire women to be involved in reproductive justice, especially in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and to learn more about reproductive anatomy and hygiene. I worked with my fellow intern to create two games. One had participants labeling the parts of the female reproductive system, and the other was called Where’s the Clit? which operated similarly to pinning the tail on the donkey. This event was probably my favorite during my time at PPGC, as it was so much fun, and I got to meet many members of the New Orleans community.