When designing our Naya Paila curriculum, we started with reviewing Nepal's existing national sexuality education curriculum and examining existing local initiatives to understand the current landscape of sex education and identify opportunities for improvement.

We conducted an extensive review of internationally recognized comprehensive sexuality education frameworks developed by leading authorities, including UNESCO, the WHO, and the UNFPA, and identified the core pillars of effective sex education, such as puberty, reproduction, menstruation, consent & boundaries, gender and sexual identity, and sexual abuse prevention. Our Pedagogy Fellow was tasked with carefully reviewing all of our educational materials to ensure they align with the standards and best practices outlined by the aforementioned authorities.

After identifying the core pillars of comprehensive sexuality education, we asked ourselves a broader question: what other knowledge and skills do young people need to fully grasp these concepts and apply them meaningfully and confidently in their lives? For example, research shows that body dissatisfaction is especially common during adolescence, particularly among girls aged 10 to 19. Considering the significant physical, psychological, and emotional changes that occur during puberty, we identified a strong need to follow our session on puberty with one focused on body image. Our seven Research Fellows from across the globe worked on a wide range of research and content development: from understanding how sleep deprivation affects teen brain development to creating an essential skincare guide for adolescents, and even developing practical scripts to help young people navigate potentially awkward or difficult conversations about STI testing before sexual activity, with variations in tones, including funny, casual, serious, and empathetic.

Finally, all of our educational content and materials undergo a process we call “Pyari-fication”—meaning we make it fun! Whether it is by infusing our syllabus with pop culture references, bringing in art supplies for hands-on activities, or inviting students to demonstrate understanding through drama, music, and poetry, this final step of refinement is what sets our pedagogical approach apart. It started with our first creative workshops with young people in Nepal, and today it looks like students drawing their best teenage life vlog, creating collages of beauty standards across time and place, and imagining text exchanges where they recount the experience of buying a pad or a condom and it turned funny. Our two Creative Fellows were responsible for bringing each learning outcome to life through carefully curated memes, pop culture references, hands-on activities, and games.

While our Naya Paila curriculum has been nearly one and a half years in the making, we recognize that no comprehensive sexuality education is ever truly complete. We actively seek feedback from students, guardians, and school faculty and administrators to continuously refine and update our curriculum, keep it relevant, and ensure it reflects the latest research in youth development and comprehensive sexuality education.