Tu Nguyen never had a formal sex education (sex-ed) class at his school in Hanoi, nor was he trained as an educator on the subject, but he and his team have set out to change the face of sex-ed in Vietnam. Tu, Linh Hoang, Thu Ha and Ngoc Nguyen cofounded startup WeGrow Edu (WE) in their early 20s with the ambitious goal of empowering children and young people from the ages of five to 24 to better understand sex and sexuality. “We especially focus on students from grade 1 to 12. This is when they need the company of an organisation like ours and their families. Currently, schools don’t have really a sex-ed [teaching] model that can actually work and benefit them,” Tu said. Students at WE learn how to build healthy relationships and protect their bodies. Each lesson reinforces the validity of their self-identity and their freedom to make their own choices, with a message of gender equality woven throughout.