Bronx high school senior gives back to community by leading sex ed workshops

Richeiny Pimentel-Soto, a high school senior, leads a group of seventh graders in a game of anatomy Pictionary on Feb. 14, 2024.

Photo Emily Swanson

High school senior Richeiny Pimentel-Soto does not have a typical after-school job. Instead of flipping burgers or ringing up customers, she’s busy answering questions like “What’s a vulva?” “Can people choose their sexual orientation?” and “What if a menstrual cup leaks?”

Such is a typical workshop with seventh graders for Pimentel-Soto, a native of the Concourse neighborhood and Peer Facilitator with JAM (Just Ask Me), a program run by the nonprofit WHEDco (Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation). 

She has helped lead about 30 workshops since October — after going through the program as a middle-schooler herself.

“It’s fun to give back to my community the same as was given to me,” Pimentel-Soto told the Bronx Times during a visit to a Feb. 14 workshop on gender identity and sexual orientation.

JAM was started in 2009 by a group of teen girls from the Bronx who were concerned about teen pregnancy and the lack of sex education in their schools. After hearing from their schools that the state had no set curriculum, they took matters into their own hands. Peer Facilitators with JAM are still leading workshops on gender and sexuality, healthy relationships, contraception, STIs, pregnancy and anatomy.

Even in a politically liberal state, the lack of comprehensive sex ed in New York persists. Surveys by Planned Parenthood show that 80% of parents want their kids to participate in sex education; however, New York does not mandate such classes — and only three states do.

Now is an especially important time for people of all ages to be informed, according to the city Department of Health, which recently reported increases in detection of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) from 2021 to 2022. 

As more testing re-opened following the peak of the COVID-19…