More about us
The Sexual Wellness Education Initiative (SWEI) has two main components:
Firstly, we want to increase sexual wellness awareness in UCG by implementing a yearly curriculum with workshops, discussions, booklets, and other resources on a variety of important topics such as consent, STDs, birth control, etc.
We would like some part of the curriculum to be mandatory for all students every year, especially the consent and boundaries workshops where we outline our community expectations of consent. Most of the other components are optional. We focus on creating a holistic curriculum that fully encompasses the multi-faceted nature of sexual education. We want to empower students to explore their own beliefs, and relationship with their body. Topics such as consent, healthy relationships, and boundaries encourage students to engage with one another, and will ultimately strengthen the diverse community that UCG is.
Secondly, we aim to train around 10 selected students with specific workshops and external training to give them a deeper and more broad knowledge of sexual health and wellness, as well as equip them with the necessary tools to provide some mental health first aid. The goal is to make them liaisons and tools to direct students with questions to the right persons and resources. We believe that having culturally aware and trained students will make it easier and more accessible for students to ask questions, and to know where to get help. Not only will this increase the feeling of safety on campus, but it will create a network of knowledge and informed discussion around topics that affect the daily lives of students. This is something that could prove to be beneficial to the goals of engaging education at UCG.
How SWEI started
Marie founded SWEI in her first year in 2020. The idea sparked after repetitively observing an important lack of knowledge in sexual wellness when it came to university students, regardless of their cultural background. Students seemed to not know when or how to get tested for STIs, how or why to use protection in all types of sexual activities, the importance and the application of consent in different types of relationships, the benefits of masturbation, etc. On top of that, there seemed to be many cases where boundaries were crossed as student party culture and substance use increased the risk of sexual transgressive behaviour occurring. She noticed students didn’t know which resources to reach out to for any of the above situations, and, while the university offered resources, she didn’t think the resources were sufficient. She thought there was a huge gap between the student body and the university which needed to be bridged. Sexual wellness knowledge needed to be accessible and its importance needed to be highlighted. This is what made her come up with SWEI: a holistic sexual wellness curriculum offered every year to University students, as well as the creation of a team of trained people available to refer students to proper resources based on any questions they may have regarding sexual wellness. The University College of Groningen agreed to fund this organisation and supported SWEI’s goal to ultimately improve students' safety and wellbeing. SWEI has now been running for 3 years and its team continues to do their very best for the student body.
Marie Fournier (Founder)
Unique Features of SWEI
In the following section, the six unique features of SWEI will be highlighted. They are the special strengths that make SWEI the organisation it is today.
Student-driven
SWEI was founded and is run by students, therefore SWEI is the bridge between students and resources within and outside the university. Additionally, it initiates a norm for students to be mindful of their sexual well-being.
Trained team
All SWEI members are trained in the week(s) before the beginning of each academic year. Additionally, agreements are formed between the SWEI Team and the personal support advisor(s) to ensure the safety and well-being of both the students and the members.
Holistic Approach
We are the only organisation in the Netherlands who is providing a holistic approach to sex education based on the variety of workshops we organise. Therefore, we provide a rich curriculum.
Expert Involvement
Hiring appropriate experts for sex education enables our curriculum to be rich with knowledge. By doing so, we ensure that each speaker is an expert in one specific field so that each workshop is of the highest quality.
Extensive Network
Since SWEI was founded, we have been building our network with experts within their fields. As a result, it also becomes easier for us to reach new experts if necessary. Our network prevents the university from spending time and resources on searching for reliable and informative experts.
Tailored Workshops
We work closely with the experts to conduct our workshops in an interesting, informative, and interactive manner. Every year we meet with the experts again to discuss improvements based on the feedback given by participating students. Additionally, we discuss new relevant topics, making our workshops applicable to the real world.
Moreover, we offer ‘Further Education’ courses as part of our curriculum, allowing universities to choose which workshops they would like to provide for their students. We also are concerned with recommendations made by the students or the university and are up to date with important topics.