Keep hope alive

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Feb. 17, 2004

African coalition requests UFI's "Stay Alive" abstinence program

Contact: info@stayalive.org

MESA, AZ - A coalition of 16 West African nations has requested that United Families International (UFI) offer the abstinence program "Stay Alive" to its member countries in an attempt to fight the AIDS pandemic.

Following recent meetings in Accra, Ghana with UFI board chairman Craig Cardon and the executive director of Reach the Children, Kevin Clawson, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) expressed its desire to implement the Stay Alive program in West African schools. Stay Alive abstinence curriculum is currently being taught in eight African nations, and Zambia has also requested the program.

United Families and the Reach the Children organization, which operates the Stay Alive program for UFI, received a letter from ECOWAS stating: "ECOWAS recognizes the essential role of education in addressing this pandemic and asks that United Families International and Reach the Children continue their Stay Alive program among ECOWAS member states, and further encourages that all resources possible be found and committed to this end."

Cardon said, "The ECOWAS ministers recognized the value of a program inviting behavioral change and which teaches consequential decision making, while enhancing communication between children and parents/guardians on sensitive subjects. Stay Alive provides a formal, multi-year program for that instruction. The ministers are very impressed with the Stay Alive process."

In order to bring Stay Alive to the schools of the member nations, teacher training will need to occur, and funds must be generated for the cost of printing the workbooks.

"We continue to solicit contributions for parties that are interested in the Stay Alive program," Cardon said. "We are pursuing funding with the U.S. Congress. We are also looking to the member nations for contributions, but their resources are limited. The need for this program is so pervasive, and many African AIDS/HIV victims are being sent home to die."

The U.S. House of Representatives has previously endorsed the Stay Alive program with the following language in an appropriations bill:

"In Uganda, Kenya and elsewhere in Africa, as part of a broad range of responses to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the Committee supports expansion of programs to promote sexual abstinence education programs in primary and secondary schools throughout the continent. Proposals by established programs such as Stay Alive and Silver Ring merit special consideration by the AIDS Coordinator."