Vex-Ed About Sex-Ed: An Interview With Mallika and Vartika
Saairah Mehta had the opportunity to interview the co-founders of a sex-ed organization, Vex-Ed, Mallika Bawa, and Vartika. Mallika and Vartika attended school together and have been friends ever since. Mallika studies zoology at St. Xaviers University, Mumbai, and Vartika studies biomedical sciences at the University of Cincinnati. Vex-Ed has been their lockdown baby. Its birth was triggered by the unforgettable Hathras Case. Vex-Ed aims to educate children in the urban and rural space about sex and sexuality and propagate change in the realm of sexuality education.
Saairah: So my first question to the both of you is, what was the story behind the name Ved-Ed?
Mallika: This is in the late part of 2020, where we were discussing how there needs to something to discuss and address the rising assault cases and lack of sex education. We saw how vexed we were with the whole generation not being able to talk about sex and not get quality education about sex and sexuality. Not to mention the wordplay with Vex-Ed and how it resembles Sex-ED.
Vartika: Yeah, of course! I mean, the wordplay was definitely an added incentive. Still, we were just all discussing how this lack of education and the rising cases was so problematic and annoying, and the word vexed came up, so we just decided to go with it!
Saairah: How did you sow the seed to Vex-Ed? How did it all begin?
Mallika: I think what really triggered us was the Hathras rape case. I mean, there were so many cases before that, too, like the Hyderabad case, and we were thinking how all of this keeps piling on and on. We didn’t just want to “talk” about it anymore. We wanted to initiate change at the grassroots level. Vartika suggested we have our organization where we go to schools and try to inculcate this in our curriculum.
Saairah: So both of you went to the same school, did you face any discrimination or specific trauma or trigger that really impacted you and pushed you to start Vex-ED and address sex-ed in schools?
Vartika: I think it was all about how we never got good sexuality education at all. Even in my university, I had one semester of sex-ed, and I was astonished at the things I got to learn. Even things I already knew about, I was taught in so many details. The fact that I was in college and still not taught about this stuff was super embarrassing for me. It was triggering how something even close to comprehensive sexuality education wasn’t taught to us. Even in school, sessions on breast cancer were conducted only for women, whereas men can experience breast cancer personally or in their family.
Mallika: I think the whole gender-segregation thing was really triggering. I mean, it wasn’t triggering at that moment, but now I think about it, and it’s outrageous. Even if I were to talk about sex-ed with my cousins, my parents would give me the eye, which is not something I’m okay with.
Saairah: Where does Vex-Ed bring its expertise from, is there any experience in SRHR or the sexuality education realm?
Mallika: Ever since we decided that we wanted to dive into the sex-ed realm, we decided to have advisors on our team that help us in ensuring our content is culturally sensitive, inclusive, factually correct, and is legal. Apart from that we take regular courses, keep reading and keep ourselves updated.
Vartika: I think we have a very diverse group. There are people studying psychology and law and sociology and biology, so we all have our own contributions to make sure our content is comprehensive in all ways. Our advisors are extremely renowned, and they keep holding training sessions for us, help us in value-building, and keep us educated. They have had a very positive impact on vex-ed.
Saairah: How are you able to distinguish yourself from other sex-ed organizations? What’s your USP?
Vartika: I think ever since I’ve been a part of this community, I feel like the whole sex-ed community has been extremely supportive and helpful. We never felt any form of competition or pressure. Even organizations like Pratisandhi help us stay on our toes. We love to collaborate and reach out to more people.
Mallika: I think one thing that separates us is that we’re trying to address school curriculum and address schools and authorities. But apart from that, there is no competition or rivalry in this community. It’s heartfelt, and the collective goal is to make as much an impact as possible.
“By going to schools, we want to impact the lives of underprivileged children and help them understand the most basic concepts. That’s the future of VEX-ED!”
Saairah: So your primary goal is to reach schools. What difficulties have you faced approaching schools?
Mallika: By far, we haven’t approached schools. We have multiple workshops with parents and adults. We’re creating modules and learning aids for it to be introduced in the curriculum. Whatever experience we have had with parents and workshops has been extremely welcoming, they seemed interested and accepting, and we loved that. They seemed inclined to educate themselves.
Vartika: We plan to go to schools, and we have anticipated the resistance against our initiative. But we are preparing ourselves to approach them with a rock-solid proposal that they wouldn’t be able to decline. The aim is to reach more people at the end of the day.
Saairah: One trend that we have seen on your feed is that your focus on posts and content has shifted immensely from women and women-related topics like menstruation to men-related content. How has the response been?
Vartika: The responses have been drastically different. When we talk about women-related stuff, we would get hateful comments, of course. Still, when we talk about stuff related to men, like apparent hypersexuality in men and mens’ rights and everything, there would be 2-3 people who will want to attack us for everything even when we talk about stuff that favors them. Without even reading or understanding our perspective, they would be like, “NO WE DONT WANT CONSENT”, “I am hypersexualized, so what?”. They don’t even understand that we are vouching for their rights and equality. Most people take the content well, but few would be ready to ambush. You can bring the horse near the water, but you can’t make him drink the water, right?
Saairah: With so many initiatives on your feed like “Shoutout Saturdays” and “Mythbusting Monday,” how do you keep bringing new content?
Mallika: I have never thought that there is only so much to explore in sex-ed. On Sundays, we have our sex-ed Sunday, where people ask us questions. When people ask us questions, we understand the different angles from which people look at things and have doubts that need to be addressed. We have our calendar as well, where we keep putting in ideas and initiatives. There is so much to discuss and so much to address.
“Ever since I’ve been a part of this community, I feel like the whole sex-ed community has been extremely supportive and helpful.”
Saairah: How is the volunteer culture at Vex-Ed? How can people become a part of your team?
Vartika: I think everyone who resonates with us can easily become a part of our team. A simple DM or email to us, and we will give them an application form for being a volunteer/part of the team. If needed, we would interview to get to know them better. There are a couple of teams, social media/content creation team, lesson plan creating team, graphics, etc. It’s a versatile team, and there is no age bar even though we are a youth-based organization. In the future, we will need teams for outreach to contact schools for us conducting sessions there, and we would need a team that would conduct sessions as well. It’s pretty versatile, and it will keep expanding.
Mallika: People could also send us their creative pieces to feature on our feed or our blogs.
Saairah: What is the future of Vex-ED?
Mallika: When we created Vex-ED, we discussed the goals and aims of our organization. For us, there is no tangible threshold for success. We just want to make a difference in the lives of people. By going to schools, we want to impact the lives of underprivileged children and help them understand the most basic concepts. That’s the future of VEX-ED! And that’s our success, just impacting the lives of the people so they can care for themselves better. We just got started. There is a long way to go. Baby steps!
Follow @VexEd.India to learn more about their journey and upcoming initiatives!
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