Choose Life School Abstinence Program:  (education, prevention)

We are thrilled about this program, which was started on a March 2007 South Africa mission trip.  32 volunteers spent 2 days in 4 schools, talking about HIV, AIDS, and prevention to over 2500 students.  The most important component of this program was promoting abstinence, an unpopular idea in the lives of these young people.  We emphasized the moral facets of relationships and the Godly design of sex, and the importance of thinking and looking toward the future, not just the short term.  In this program we ask children to Choose Life, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. This has been an amazingly eye-opening experience for the volunteers.  Students were encouraged to write anonymous letters describing how AIDS has affected them personally—what they wrote was heartbreaking:  My greatest fear is: “Being raped again.  Men scare and taunt me all the time as they try to get me to sleep with them.  I fear they will kill me.  What do I do?”  AIDS has affected my life in this way: “I have dropped weight because I did not accept my status.  My family does not want to be with me anymore.  Also, my friends do not want to play with me because I am HIV+ and they say I will infect them”……“I have AIDS. People look at me like I am a dog and rubbish.  They say ‘I wish she would die, or be killed, or get in an accident.’  My parents say they don't want me.”  We began to realize the daily peril and emotional struggles that these young people live with; sexual abuse is such a huge problem in South Africa.  Reaching the younger populations with this message is so very important.