Abstinence Only Education

The Border Health Foundation was funded as a nonprofit organization in 1984 in response to growing concerns about health conditions at the international border between Arizona and Mexico. The organization works to improve the health of the people in the Americas with a particular focus on the United States-Mexico border by developing relationships that further educate and empower people and maximize the utilization of resources. The BHF programs seek to improve health coordination and cooperation while respecting diversity in each of the communities served.

The BHF has been providing Abstinence Only Education in Southern Arizona since 1998. In its current program Border Health Foundation’s Tu Futuro/Your Future Abstinence program is currently running in five counties; Graham, Greenlee, La Paz, Imperial and Yuma providing the Worth the Wait curriculum, one of the most up to date, student friendly abstinence curriculum available. Designed and written by a group of educators, healthcare professionals and attorneys, a variety of topics are covered providing students with knowledge of the social, psychological and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity and also with the skills which will lead them to self sufficiency and a strong resolve to remain abstinent. The curriculum is written in a spiral fashion starting with introductory information and increasing in depth and complexity of details and supportive facts. Thus, topics are provided in an age appropriate manner.

In an effort to provide consistency and congruency with the educational system we have employed educators from the local communities to provide the curriculum to students, our educators are also parents which increases the relevance of the information provided during our class sessions dealing with communication that are provided to participants parents.

Young Ambassadors Club

Border Health Foundation has incorporated summer activities as part of the Tu Futuro /Your Future programs goals and objectives in order to strengthen positive peer support and teach the youth involved about positive decisions. The Young Ambassadors Club teaches youth the importance of avoiding risky behaviors and their negative consequences. They are then taught by a media arts professional about Web 2.0 technology and the tools needed to create videos with positive targeted messages, editing, utilization of cameras and lighting and story line creation. Youth hen have the opportunity to write their own story with a targeted positive and healthy message, film it and assist with the editing of the video. All youth are supervised at all times by our educators that are currently working at local high schools and by the media arts professional who guides them every step of the way.  Below are all five videos created by the Young Ambassadors Club members in 2009.