3 November 2003.

1. Introduction:
During the year 2003 there was once again a tremendous demand for the Focus on the Family, No Apologies, HIV/AIDS prevention programme, and it was most gratifying to see the response of parents, educators and learners to the message of abstinence until marriage as the only way to elimate the risk of contracting the HIV/AIDS virus. Our slogan, "abstinence, it works every time" was a definite hit with the children and again many of them asked: "why did’nt someone tell me this before".

Our No Apologies curricululm is ideally suited to deal with the surge in Africa towards abstinence as the solution to our HIV/AIDS crisis. We had the advantage of well written and tested educator and learner materials in a number of languages available for presentation to the people of South Africa. Our No Apologies team took up the challenge and once again enthusiastically took this great message of hope to just under 87 000 learners and over 1 663 educators during 2003.

The No Apologies programme concentrates on empowering our schools in the country by training grade 7 educators to present the message of abstinence until marriage to the learners of their schools through a three day high impact seminar. The advantages of this method are that the educator remains at the school ensuring that the work accomplished is sustained and secondly, because the educators know their learners and their families well and can deal more appropriately with difficulties encountered in the classroom.

2. Regions Reached during 2003:
For the second successive year, the grade seven learners from 89 schools in the Mapumulo region of KwaZulu-Natal were taught the value of abstinence until marriage. The grade seven learners of the Mvoti region of KwaZulu-Natal as well as the Alberton and Boksburg regions of Gauteng, the Bizana region of the Eastern Cape, and the Komatipoort area of Mpumalanga were all reached for the second consecutive year.

New projects were started in the Free State with twelve different presentations as well as new pilot projects in the Lephalale District in Limpopo Province, Kimberly in the Northern Cape and Rustenburg and Vryburg in the North West Province where the whole province has been earmarked for the No Apologies message of abstinence. KwaZulu-Natal had nine new presentations and the Eastern Cape one new presentation in the Umzimkulu region. This leaves the Western Cape as the only province that has not been impacted by the No Apologies abstinence message.

4. Responses from the Educators and Learners include the following statements:

• A child who was being sexually abused testified in front of the class. The educator contacted her parents and referred them to a local social worker.
  An educator felt challenged to take this message to her Sunday School class.
  Learners started chanting anti-sex before marriage slogans to merit the successfulness of the programme.

• The course not only educates the learners but also the educators and some parents.
  It facilitated communication between parents and educators.

• A bond of trust developed between educators and learners.

• Pupils felt a sense of freedom after the course as they were able to share their burdens with
  someone whom they could trust.

• Learners felt better equipped to deal with problems they might encounter in the future.

• Learners were convicted of their previous behaviour and the course definitely brought about a changein them.

• Pupils were so encouraged by the programme that they promised to pass on the message to their parents and the communities they live in.

• One learner shared with her teacher how the programme had changed her behaviour.

• The girls who had fallen pregnant the previous year went up to sign the pledge for abstinence.

• An educator said her colleagues and the principal often visited the class during the lesson and they offered some valuable words of advice to the learners.

• The programme should be introduced at an earlier age as some pupils develop early physically but are still mentally immature.
  
• 
  The programme should be repeated to the learners every year up to grade 12.

• The programme should be introduced earlier as some learners fall pregnant and get STD’s while in Grades 5 & 6.

• An educator expressed that she felt the programme was vital to children and that more teachers should be trained, as it would help to build a better nation.

• Abstinence should be taught in the school as part of the curriculum.

• The course should be run on an ongoing basis at the schools as educators have observed that some of the children are victims in their own homes.

• These kinds of problems have only come to light since teaching the programme. Therefore the course is important in identifying and monitoring the children’s state of well-being.

• Parents should be more involved in this course as they need to be educated themselves so that they will be equipped to advise their children correctly.

5. Statistics:
A total of 1 663 educators and 86 982 learners were reached during 2003. The average % of learners that pledged abstinence until marriage amounted to 79.06 %. This means that 68,768 children signed the pledge of abstinence. According to recent research in the USA this singning of the pledge will delay the onset of sexual activity for at least 1½ – 3 years. Now this delay will mean that the child will be 16 or 17 years of age and much more mature to make informed decisions about sexual activity. A recent study in the American Journal of Sociology found that among American black females, the median age of first sexual encounter of those that took the pledge was 18,6 years of age compared with 16,3 years of age of those that did not take the pledge. Therefore if we are able to reinforce the values taught through the No Apologies programme year after year, imagine the impact on not only HIV/AIDS but also on pregnancies at school, STI transmissions and the family itself.

The statistics therefore are:

6. Advantages of the No Apologies HIV/AIDS Prevention Curriculum:
Over the year, it has become apparent that the No Apologies HIV/AIDS curriculum has the following advantages over other HIV/AIDS prevention programmes.

7.1 It is suitable for all cultures and faiths. This became especially apparent with the work accomplished with the Muslim AIDS programme where we had the privalege of training their facilitators to take the message of No Apologies to Muslim based schools.

7.2 It is well established on the basis of having well written educator and student guides that have already been translated into a number of different South African languages.

7.3 The facilitators are well trained and have been exceptionally well received by the educators, learners and communities where they have worked.

7.4 The course has been well supported by the provincial educational departments.
7.5 It is managed by a very experienced educationalist who has good knowledge of education in disadvantaged communities.

7.6 It is based on character as opposed to the condom as being the only solution to our HIV/AIDS crisis. Character deals with all high risk behaviour and deals with more than just the physical part of mankind.

7.7 Behaviour change has been identified as the real solution to the HIV/AIDS crisis of Africa. The No Apologies course deals especially with behaviour change.

8. Some highlights of the Year 2003:
Educators in Botshabelo being trained. 90 educators attended this training session and took the message of abstinence to over 3000 learners in their area. Botshabelo is a very poor area and our facilitators encouraged the educators to teach the section on goal setting very well because learners need goals to get educated and secure jobs in the future.