Celebration of 25 Years Of our Whole Lives Owl.

Hello, I'm Dr. Melanie Davis, the uas, our whole lives program manager.
I'm a white woman in my sixties with mid with silver hair clear frame glasses and a royal blue dress. I am thrilled to announce the 25th anniversary of the Our Whole Lives Life affirming lifesaving Sexuality education curriculum.

And I'm the Reverend Amy Johnson, minister for Sexuality Education and Justice in the National Ministries of the United Church of Christ.
I'm a white woman in my sixties with blonde hair wearing black pants and a black shirt with a clergy collar and I bring you greetings from our general minister and president Reverend Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson, and so much gratitude for a unique interfaith publishing partnership that brings OWL to UU congregations, UCC churches and far beyond.

OWL provides engaging medically accurate sexuality education that helps people of all ages respect and accept themselves and others take pleasure in their bodies, make informed and responsible decisions and advocate for their own and others safety and rights. This values-based program reflects the UUAS and the UCCS longstanding commitments to social justice and individual agency.

We honor the UU and UCC visionaries who created owl, our field testers and the 746 UU congregations that have sent more than 16,000 people to facilitator trainings over the years. We also honor congregations in 46 states, the District of Columbia and Canada that have hosted facilitator trainings as well as our UCC and community trainers across the US and Canada as well as the Philippines, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago.

OWL has grown from six levels to seven and now includes monthly webinars online and in-person facilitator trainings and small group ministry programs and videos for parents and caregivers. Its reach has increased too. The Wisconsin Conference of the United Methodist Church now recommends OWL for its churches.

It earned a MEDULLO award and endorsement for homeschoolers. UU military chaplains have received OWL facilitator training and the UCC has collaborated with Christian and Muslim religious leaders and health educators to pilot test an adaptation for Tanzania and Rwanda.

Ongoing attacks on school-based sex ed, reproductive healthcare and the L-G-B-T-Q-I-A community call us to lean into the ministry of Our Whole Lives more strongly now than ever to learn how you can help expand OWL's reach through collaborative relationships.

Join us and our Side with Love colleagues tomorrow for a workshop called Our Whole Lives Sexuality Education as a Community Care Innovation.

Thank you for your ongoing commitment to Our Whole Lives. We are proud to be in this Ministry with you. Please enjoy, Please Enjoy This video about OWL's impact and join us at 4:00 PM in the exhibit hall for a free 25th anniversary reception.

Thank you.

When I became a parent, I knew it was going to be important to support my child's sexual development in you know, good ways in affirming and honest and factual, um, all of this stuff.
And to be able to answer his questions non-judgmentally and honestly, I had no idea how early those questions were going to start and how complicated they were going to be. So when our congregation announced that they were running Elementary OWL, we were so excited to get some help in answering some of his questions and to have a place where he could ask questions he didn't want to directly ask us.

OWL has four core values, one of which is self-worth. And there's so much in the world right now that says you don't count, you're not enough. Who you are needs to be different. And yet OWL helps us understand more deeply that we are loved, that God made us just the way we are, that each of us is enough and that we are all beloved.

Hi, my name's Lauren and I'm Kate. Our parents made us take OWL when we were in middle school and we're very glad they did. It gave me a better understanding of my gender and my sexuality and it gave me a safe space to ask questions and learn about sexuality and it was very different from what we learned in public school.

If you imagine sex ed as an iceberg, schools cover the small parts above water, but OWL covers everything below the water, including the conversations and information young people need most. We feel very lucky we were able to take OWL.

One of the things I love about Our Whole Lives, it's the ability for us to be able to share our spirituality and sexuality in a way that is safe, nourishing, and self-empowering. It actually is saving lives in a time like this. We need Our Whole Lives more than ever. So I encourage you to explore it, share it with all those in the name of Christ. God bless you.

This work, this OWL programming, this spiritual experience has been deeply impactful for me and my community and my family. It feels like when so much is happening in our country related to identity and projections of identity and what should and shouldn't be, that there's nothing more right than this work of OWL and there's no better way to support each other in this time in understanding how sexuality and spirituality overlap and that our religion, our faith, Unitarian Universalism calls us to do this work. It's so powerful. So I'm sending this message to say thank you and please continue.

Please continue to encourage participants across the country to join in this, to offer this, to help Unitarian Universalists identify the connection between spirituality and sexuality in religion to speak up when those values are being threatened. 

And thank you again for this opportunity to participate in this programming and these trainings. I look forward to this work in the future.

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Our Whole Lives, OWL, is an expansive sexuality education curriculum that honors every one of us on our respective journeys towards authentic and respectful sexual awakening, learning, exploration, experience and wonder. OWL moves powerfully across diverse landscapes of identity, assumptions, stereotypes, generations, location, faith and beyond, far beyond may the journey continue.

Happy 25th.

Thank you Melanie and Amy.

We're so proud of all that Our Whole Lives has accomplished over these 25 years. Its effect on both UUs and non-UUs is immeasurable.