Ask any educator in Europe whether young people are well prepared for the emotional, relational and physical realities of adulthood, and most will pause before answering. The honest reply is: not really and not equally.
Across the European Union, only ten countries currently include topics such as gender roles, mutual consent and contraception in their sex education curricula, and only eight address HIV, sexually transmitted infections and human rights in any depth. Sexual orientation is mentioned in fifteen. The actual content of these curricula how it is taught, by whom, and to whom remains largely unexamined. For LGBTQI+ young people, the consequences of these gaps are documented and severe: in the EU Fundamental Rights Agency’s most recent survey, between 60 and 70 per cent of LGBTIQ respondents reported harassment in school settings, with measurable knock-on effects on stress, anxiety and self-harm.
| “53% of LGBTQI+ young people surveyed by the Fundamental Rights Agency reported feeling discriminated against in at least one area of life.” |
This is the gap Rainbow Rhythms was built to address.
From “sex ed” to ERSE
Rainbow Rhythms a two-year cooperation partnership co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ programme promotes a holistic alternative to traditional sex education called Emotional, Relationship, and Sexuality Education, or ERSE. The shift from “SE” to “ERSE” is more than a rebrand. It is a deliberate move away from a curriculum focused mainly on biology and risk avoidance, towards one that recognises sexuality as physical, emotional, social and relational at once.
ERSE draws on the principles of Comprehensive Sexuality Education and Relationship and Sexuality Education, but adds a critical fourth dimension: emotional literacy. As the World Health Organization observes, high-quality sexuality education equips young people with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values they need to form respectful relationships and make informed choices. Reduce it to anatomy and prevention, and you lose almost everything that matters: trust, communication, identity, consent, and care for self and others.
Why now, and why Europe
Within the project’s four partner countries Cyprus, Greece, the Netherlands and Spain the gulf between policy and lived classroom reality is striking. Spain and the Netherlands are widely seen as European leaders on LGBTQI+ rights and inclusive education, yet recent Dutch research suggests that around a third of primary schools still do not adequately address topics related to homosexuality. Greece has expanded LGBTQI+ rights significantly between 2015 and 2024. Cyprus introduced its Holistic Sexual Education Law as recently as 2022. Progress is uneven, and the gap between law and practice is real.
Meanwhile, young people are not waiting. They are turning to social media, peers and unverified online sources for information that should be available accurately, sensitively, and inclusively through their schools and youth organisations.
What makes Rainbow Rhythms different is its conviction that the arts can do what textbooks cannot. Visual art, theatre, creative writing and digital storytelling create space for the kinds of conversation traditional curricula struggle to host: conversations about identity, desire, vulnerability, family, fear and joy. They invite empathy without demanding agreement. They make the unfamiliar familiar.
What you can do
If you are a youth worker or educator, the Rainbow Rhythms resources will be free and open-access. If you are a policymaker, our forthcoming policy recommendations will offer concrete steps to integrate inclusive ERSE into youth sector practice. If you are a parent, an ally, or simply someone who cares about the kind of Europe young people inherit, we invite you to follow the project, share what you read, and join the conversation.
Half a generation of young Europeans is asking, in effect, to be seen. ERSE done well, done inclusively, done with art is one of the most powerful ways we know to answer.