the3rdi magazine for Working Women

When I saw the twitter account from a group called No Sex Without Love I was intrigued. My first thought was that this must be an evangelical religious grouping, the kind that take the attitude "Just Say No" to the majority of social and ethical dilemmas. While these groups might be very worthy they are all too often one-dimensional and there is probably not a lot to say beyond imploring us to say no. But something made me want to find out more. So I contacted founder Whitney Iles, and I'm glad I did!

Whitney is a passionate, young social entrepreneur and co-founder of No Sex With Out Love; at just 22 years old she is also one of three directors of Equanomics UK, a movement for race equality via economic justice and she is working towards the launch of the Financial Intelligence Academy a programme to raise financial IQ, economic leverage and work towards developing more community friendly banking systems within the UK.

I asked Whitney what made her found NSWOL?
"The inspiration came from being surronded by young women who were using sex as a way to find and/or escape love. We chose the phrase No Sex WithOut Love to remind them of the conversations we had about self love and to help the girls focus on the reasons behind their promiscuous behaviour."

"We soon realized that this was common behaviour in the majority of women, both young and old, we came into contact with on a daily basis. Even where promiscuous behaviour wasn't so obvious the lack of self love and the longing for unconditional love was consistent. The NoSexWithOutLove was formed out of this relization. We wanted a platform where we could educate and empower young women, raise awareness around the issues that young women were and are facing, take the taboo from particular subjects like sex, sexual exploitation, abuse and rape and create a safe and secure place for young women to speak."

"Our Mission is to educate and empower young women by providing a safe, creative platform & activities to experience life, grow and find self-love."

&And we have found that by empowering young girls and helping them to address their promiscuous behaviour that this has had a knock-on positive effect on the behaviour of the boys in their groups. They too are forced to address their attitudes towards the girls, sex and to themselves."

"Our aims are to raise awareness of violence and abuse against women and young people, to promote awareness of sexual health and responsible sexual relationships and to develop safe and creative platforms for young people to talk about sex, relationships and day-to-day issues they face".

Whitney is a dynamic, confident and charming young female entrepreneur who has done more in her 22 years than most of us attempt in a lifetime. Studying for a degree in Law with the Open University, her enthusiasm for knowledge is rivaled only by her desire to pass on her learning and help others to become the best they can be. All too often initiatives to address sex and relationships are either imposed upon a community or created by older female entrepreneurs who, with the best will in the world, cannot be totally in tune with the young girls they are hoping to educate. To see a social enterprise arise from work within a community and to offer workshops, training and education programmes back into the community is truly inspirational.

Charlene is a co founder of NoSexWithoutLove and has an unmatched optimism for positive change. During late 2007 and early 2008, Charlene teamed up with Whitney Iles with the idea that education and empowerment is the key to tackling major issues within young women, this later developed into NoSexWithoutLove.

Charlene has studied the social sciences, drugs awareness and has over ten years experience in voluntary youth work. Her aim is to empower young women with self love, self truth and total acceptance of self. With these empowered young women, she hopes to bring a new level of self love which will eventually teach them not to hold back in life and that the ‘sky is the limit’.

I usually wish people luck with their projects at the end of an interview but in this case I am sure that luck will not be needed. This team has all the drive, enthusiasm and talent to ensure that NSWOL will continue to be a huge success!

You can learn more by visiting http://www.nosexwithoutlove.org

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