Malaysia has no formal comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) programme despite recording 51 underage pregnancies daily (amounting to more than 18,600 cases per year), without accounting those that go unrecorded. Data from the 2012 Global School-based Student Health Survey, along with the fact that 50.4% of respondents admitted to having sex before the age of 14, is shocking. The country has seen a corresponding increase in baby dumping, unsafe abortions and infanticide. Not even rape victims are protected in the aftermath of their trauma, with many married off to their rapists so the babies they bear may be ‘legitimate’. It is estimated that 39-45% of the fathers to teenage pregnancies are adult males, with 80% of these abusers being someone who was known to the victim and who groomed them for the purpose of sexual abuse, according to a 2015 report from the Royal Malaysian Police. Victims often did not know they’d been wronged. Here are the current statistics around underage sexual activities in Malaysia:

1. Under the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017. It is an offence to have sex with teens below the age of 18. In Malaysia 7.3% of the teens have unknowingly committed this offence;

2. A study from the National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) revealed that only 12% of respondents said they used condoms. Out of that 7.3 per cent, (21:11) had multiple sexual partners;

3. An estimated three million girls aged 15 to 19 undergo unsafe abortions every year. Uncertified, underground, traditional abortions prone to further health risk and excruciating pain. And, worldwide, one in five girls have given birth by the age of 18. It has been reported that in Malaysia, an average of 18,000 teenagers get pregnant each year.

Listed are the problems we addressed with the SPOT Programmes since 2015

1. Underage sexual activities;

2. Child grooming (online and offline);

3. Child sexual abuse (1 out of 4 girls and 1 out of 6 boys in Malaysia have suffered some form of sexual abuse);

4. Teenage pregnancy (51 girls fall pregnant everyday in Malaysia);

5. Level of STI among young people.

Puberty with Dignity is an interactive browser based storybook that allows the player to make decisions for the character while the character is going through puberty.

The objectives of this project are:

• To provide young people with high quality and interactive learning in order to allow them to make informed decisions and navigate their expectations around puberty better
• To provide proper education on puberty can seed a positive outlook regarding their relationship building skills, sexuality, health and wellbeing, sexual and reproductive health and safety, subsequently, to address the problems listed above
• To contribute in creating awareness regarding puberty and to prepare them to go through those changes.

The mission of this project is working to inform and inspire 10,000 children, especially girls, by December 2021.

The SPOT vision is to help children, especially girls, become confident and resilient in making informed decisions for their well-being, now and for their future.

Most of our activities will revolve around bringing the story to life which includes

1. content creation and
2. designing interactive graphics as well as
3. developing the system that runs it.

Listed below are the activities and tasks that we will conduct in achieving the target set:

Content creation and website designing

• The storyline and the content such as graphics, videos or clips will be produced and gathered to create interactive and fun contents on the website
• Designing website based on the chosen host servers to create multiple webpages UIUX

Online and offline campaign

• Creating the awareness of our project and website by campaigning through our social media to reach out to 100,000 online readers
• Reaching out to our wide connection that comprises teachers, parents, working professionals in creating awareness of our project
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Crowdfunding

• Creating a donation drive on the website to collect funds for a book reading activities for 10,000 marginalized children
• Selling activity books that complements the storybook through reward crowdfunding

Recruiting volunteers and trainers

• Training the volunteers to be able to facilitate the activities and children at the SPOT workshop and book reading activities.
• Recruiting volunteers as our focus group to identify the perceptions of user on our web app.
• Recruit volunteers with a computer science background to better facilitate the making of the website.

In the long run, we aim

• to increase the number of children with awareness of personal growth phase and physical as well as emotional changes during puberty.
• to increase the number of children that are knowledgeable regarding puberty and are able to make informed decisions independently regarding their physical, emotional and reproductive health.
• to provide quality education around puberty to 10,000 students who reside in marginalised areas through proper marketing and campaigning to drive the donations to support this cause.
• to potentially reach out to 100,000 online readers by the end of 2021 and lift the stigma towards reproductive health and help debunk puberty myths by educating the target beneficiaries with scientifically accurate facts.

This project is necessary as it contributes to SDGs 3,4 and 5 directly and 5 more indirectly. It also contributes as an NGO grass root initiative to the governments’ agenda in

implementing sex education to help address the numbers of child sexual abuse, teen

pregnancies, underage sexual activities, underage STI, baby dumping, child marriage and

grooming. It helps contribute to international conventions by helping to provide education as a human right, advancing equality, advancing the status of women.