This New Campaign About ‘Tomatoes’ is Actually About Sex Education

Safe Egypt is helping parents talk to their children about tomatoes, but they’re not really talking about tomatoes. They’re talking about sex.

“The idea of the campaign started from something very simple: tomatoes are present at every dining table, in every home, and in every fridge, to the point that sometimes we stop noticing they’re even there,” Dibo, the director and creative behind the campaign, tells CairoScene. “And that’s very similar to certain questions and topics that are always around us, whether we talk about them or not.”

Dibo directed the first of four short awareness films for Safe Egypt, an organisation that has been raising awareness about sexual abuse and violence and working to protect and empower children, teens and women for the past 14 years.

Their new campaign asks parents to speak to their children about sex because if they don’t, their children will get their - probably inaccurate - information elsewhere. Parents should be the first and safest source of information for their children, especially given the amount of easily accessible and dangerous sources they may turn to on the internet.

“We realised the problem isn’t that children ask questions, the problem is that many adults were never taught how to answer them,” Sara Aziz says, the founder of Safe Egypt. “The campaign honestly reflects our children’s questions and thoughts that they sometimes can’t say out loud, while also presenting the right response, the right mindset, and the right principles.”

Safe recognised that there was a gap in how parents were answering their children's innocent and naturally curious questions, like: “Where do babies come from?” and “Why do our bodies look like this?”

Too often, the response is: “You’re still too young,” or a flat out: “Don’t ask these kinds of questions.”

'Talk to Them About Tomatoes' is giving parents the language and confidence they need to answer those questions, backed by science and awareness of their child’s emotional and cognitive needs at their age.

“Our children will learn about sex whether we like it or not—the question is: who will teach them?” sexual psychologist Mariam Aziz asked. “Us or someone else?”