Promoting Positive Behavior 

Abstinence Education Programs Reach Minority Youth 

By Kauthar B. Umar, M.A.


Closing the Gap, Maternal Health • January/February 2004


Eighteen-year-old Ruth Adams is proud to be a part of a grow 

ing trend among America’s teens. 

“I used to think that being a virgin was kind of stupid,” Adams 

said. “But abstaining from sex is great: you feel like you’re on top of the 

world, that you know you are worth waiting for.” 

Adams is among the young leaders who are reaching out to minority communities and schools across the country in an attempt to 

boost self-esteem and lower teen pregnancy rates. Despite raging hormones and peer pressure, their message, sexual abstinence, is catching 

on, and the messengers are often the teens themselves. 

According to the Centers for Disshould be expected to abstain from sexual activity during high school 

years,” according to the January 24, 2004 published poll results conducted by Zogby International.

 In response, HHS funds more than 700 abstinence education 

programs nationwide. Along with abstinence-until-marriage messages, 

many include educational and cultural enrichments and teach about 

healthy friendships and marital relationships. 

“Abstinence education is more than telling teens not to have sex. 

It is teaching young people how to set goals, make healthy decisions 

and build healthy relationships. Young people who are equipped 

with these skills generally make the healthiease Control and Prevention, the teen 

birth rate has declined slowly but 

steadily from 1991 to 2002—dropping 28 percent since 1990. The larg­

“Abstinence from sexual activity is the only 

100 percent effective way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases...” 

est decisions about sex,” said Dr. Alma 

Golden, Deputy Assistant Secretary for 

Population Affairs. 

One such program is ReCapturing the 

est decline was for African American Vision International (RTV), which has 

women, with African American teens, Secretary Tommy Thompson reached more than 5,500 at-risk teens and 

ages 15 to 19, falling 42 percent. His- Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) pre-teens in southern Florida within the 

panic teen birth rates also declined 20 

percent between the same periods. 

Despite these declines, however, about 850,000 teens become 

pregnant each year, of which, eight in ten are unintended. The rates 

of both Hispanics and African Americans remain higher than for 

other groups, with Hispanic teens now having the highest teenage 

birth rates. 

As a result, various initiatives have been developed to reduce 

behavior leading to unintended pregnancies among at-risk youth, 

nationwide. 

President Bush’s Fiscal Year 2005 budget would increase funding for abstinence education programs to more than $270 million. In 

his State of the Union address, the President directed HHS to develop 

research-based standards for model abstinence education curricula, 

and called for a review of Federal programming for youth addressing 

teen pregnancy prevention, family planning, and STD and HIV/ 

AIDS prevention to ensure that the Federal government is sending 

the right messages to teens. He also announced a public education 

campaign designed to help parents communicate with their children 

about the health risks associated with early sexual activity. 

“Abstinence from sexual activity is the only 100 percent effective 

way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases,” said 

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) SecretaryTommy 

Thompson in a statement last year. “Education supporting an abstinence-until-marriage message is a positive development in our nation’s 

efforts to help adolescents avoid behaviors that could jeopardize their 

futures.” 

To successfully reach youth, the administration has focused on 

ways to filter the pregnancy prevention and abstinence message into 

the nation’s school system. While opinions vary on the 

type of sexuality education schools should offer, 91 percent of parents want schools to teach that “adolescents 

past eight years. 

RTV targets African American, Haitian and Hispanic sixth 

through twelfth graders through a three-tier approach focusing on 

school, home and community. Offered as an elective course throughout the academic year, RTV’s Vessels of Honor curriculum addresses 

the underlying reasons for risk-taking and teaches kids the skills they 

need to make tough choices. Students are taught about character, 

image, marriage, wedding planning, goal setting and how to value 

their virginity as they transition into adulthood. 

According to founder and CEO Jacqueline Del Rosario, RTV 

does not just teach teens to say no to sex, but teaches them to value 

themselves and embrace their future. 

“ReCapturing the Vision has become that one voice that tells 

kids that they do not need to have sex, nor do they have to,” said 

Rosario in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Health last 

year. 

In an attempt to take abstinence education outside of the classroom and into the community, RTV also partners with corporations, 

community organizations and state agencies to host concerts, conferences, rallies, training workshops and after-school programs. 

Adams, who was named Ms. RTV in 2002 for progress in community service and academics, attended the “teen empowerment” 

workshops last year. 

“They talked about how you can prepare for your future,” she 

said. “They talked about parents and how you have to talk to them in 

order for them to know how to help you. They also encouraged you 

to abstain from sex for a better future.” 

Though encouraging teens to value their future is no easy feat, 

programs that introduce abstinence as the best form of pregnancy prevention and a tool to gain more opportunities 

have been quite successful. 

continued on page 2>>>> 

Office of Minority Health Resource Center 1 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 
Promoting Positive Behavior 

Abstinence Education Programs Reach Minority Youth 

By Kauthar B. Umar, M.A.


Closing the Gap, Maternal Health • January/February 2004


Within the past year alone, the Pima 

Youth Partnership (PYP) founded in 1990, 

has introduced similar abstinence strategies 

to over 2000 rural youth in Pima County, 

Arizona. Home to 21 American Indian tribes, 

Arizona is currently tied for second in the 

country for the highest rate of births among 

15- to 19-year-olds, according to the Arizona Coalition on Adolescent Pregnancy and 

Parenting. 

In an effort to reduce the birth numbers, PYP educators visit health, science and 

social studies classes throughout the county 

to teach delay and resistance skills, and discuss the impact media, peers and parents 

have on teens and sex. Using the “Why Am 

ITempted” (W.A.I.T.) training curricula, sixth 

through 12th graders discuss HIV/AIDS, 

refusal skills, marriage and parenting. The 

fourth and fifth grade curriculum, “Managing Pressures before Marriage,” discusses values and teaches decision-making. 

“In ‘Managing Pressures before Marriage,’ kids are asked to identify three ways 

to delay having sex, two reasons why it’s 

important to delay, and then they practice 

those skills,” said Dr. Luan E. Wagner, the 

executive director of PYP. “By the end of the 

classes, kids talk about what they’ve learned. 

They remember and are better informed.” 

A condensed version of the PYP program is incorporated each summer into the 

Tohono O’odham three-week cultural camp, 

Truck of Love (TOL). For the past eight years 

TOL has enrolled 60 youth annually for life 

skills and peer leadership development training. The abstinence curricula is incorporated 

into education about O’odham legends, cultural rights and traditional O’odham language, cooking and art. 

According to Wagner, using culturally 

appropriate messages has proved to be the 

most effective way to teach abstinence. 

“In one of the tribes, our definition of 

family really bothered the kids, so we adapted 

family and marriage to mean what it does in 

their tribe,” Wagner said. 

In the Tohono O’odham culture, a man 

and a woman can create a family without 

what western society considers a formal ceremony, stated Wagner. By discussing the 

definition of family and how it relates to 

their tribe, Wagner said the children concluded that it is most important to be faithful. 

“We have to recognize cultural differences and variety, and so does Congress, if 

we want to get this right.” 

For more information on ReCapturing the 

Vision, call 305-232-6003 or go to http:// 

www.recapturingthevision.org 

For more information on the Pima Youth 

Partnership, call 520-744-9595 or go to http:/ 

/www.pyp.com

This recently released, nationally representative poll of parents with children 

under age 18 conducted by Zogby International in December 2003, shows 

that parents strongly support abstinence 

education. Some additional findings 

include: 

 Seventy-nine percent of parents 

want teens to be taught to delay 

sexual activity until they are married or for an adult relationship 

leading to marriage. 

 Ninety-one percent of parents 

want teens to be taught that sex 

should be linked to love, intimacy, and commitment and that 

these qualities are most likely to 

occur in marriage. 

 Sixty-eight percent of parents 

want schools to teach teens that 

“individuals, who are not sexually active until marriage, have 

the best chances of marital stability and happiness.” 

 Ninety-six percent of parents 

want teens to be taught that abstinence is best. 

“What Do Parents Want Taught in 

Sex Education Programs?” 

Office of Minority Health Resource Center 2 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services