Page 47 - EW July 2022

People

Pioneer sex educator of a button and there are hardly any
conversations to counter the impact
of what they are seeing and hearing.
Therefore, they fall prey to misinfor-
mation, myths and develop unsafe
attitudes. UnTaboo Education helps
them grow up with healthy attitudes
and better decision making skills.
Safety and sex education needs to be
recognised as an important life skill
for children’s holistic development.
I have been working in this space
for over a decade, not just educat-
ing children but also empowering
parents and teachers to enable open
conversations,” says Kish.
Future plans. Encouraged by the
overwhelming response of parents
and schools to her workshops and
book How I Got my Belly Button,
Kish has ambitious plans for the
Anju Kish: important life skill future. Besides publishing a second
edition of her book soon, her online
umbai-based sex educa- (1991), Kish began her career as a portal untaboo.online will offer
tion evangelist ANJU KISH journalist in Hitavada, Nagpur’s additional programmes — on body
Mis the founder-director premier English language daily, in safety, cyber safety and drugs and
of UnTaboo Education Pvt. Ltd 1993. In 1996, she moved to Mumbai alcohol resistance. “The main objec-
(estb.2015). The company conducts to work as copywriter in the Mullen tive is to help children and teens to
age-appropriate and gender inclusive Lowe Lintas Group. A decade after make informed choices and navigate
safety and sex education workshops she married Sanjiv Kishinchandani adolescence responsibly,” she says.
for children in the 8-18 years age and became mother of two curi- Dipta Joshi (Mumbai)
group. Over 30 progressive primary- ous boys, she began a futile search
secondary schools including Dhirub- for child-friendly books on sex and Experiential learning
hai Ambani International School, sexuality.
Oberoi International, Mumbai, Mayo This experience inspired her to
College, Ajmer and The Doon School, sign up with The Institute of Human innovator
Dehradun are on UnTaboo’s clients Technology, Mumbai and qualify
list. Thus far, Kish has addressed as a sex educator in 2011. After four AJESH PANDA is founder-
over 100,000 children, parents and years of independent practice as managing director of Corpo-
educators. a sexuality educator in schools, in Rrate Gurukul Pte. Ltd (CGPL,
Newspeg. On July 1, Kish is all set 2015 Kish invested her savings and estb.2007), a Singapore-based
to launch India’s first gamified promoted UnTaboo Education which ed-tech company that offers intern-
E-learning platform for safety and offers children, parents and schools ships and immersive experiential
sex education (UnTaboo.online) gamified workshops and awareness learning programmes to secondary
with two programmes — ‘Puberty lectures. and tertiary education students in
adventure for boys’ and ‘Puberty Appalled by the neglect of sex and partnership with globally top-ranked
adventure for girls’. The impactful sexuality education in school cur- universities.
content comprises animated and riculums in 2019, Kish wrote her first Currently, its eight-week online
gamified programmes that will en- book How I Got My Belly Button: internship and eight-days on-cam-
able independent learning empower- An Enchanting Story on Puberty, pus programmes in partnership with
ing children with accurate informa- Sex and Growing Up which bagged the National University of Singapore
tion to develop body positivity and the FICCI Best Children’s Book that (NUS) and Nanyang Technological
responsible behaviour. year. University (NTU) and Hewlett Pack-
History. A law and mass communica- Direct talk. “Children today have easy ard Enterprise are being delivered to
tion graduate of Nagpur University access to pornography at the click 1,000 secondary students from 150

46 EDUCATIONWORLD JULY 2022