Abstinence Awareness

Campus Report ^ | March 13, 2009 | Alanna Hultz

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Abstinence Awareness

by: Alanna Hultz, March 13, 2009

As the fourth annual abstinence awareness week kicks off, ULTRA (Urban Life Training and Reality Assessment) Teen Choice held an event at Howard University to promote abstinence awareness. ULTRA Teen Choice is a youth empowerment program that guides youth toward the formation of two-parent families and positive character development by emphasizing the benefits of abstinence from drugs, alcohol and premarital sex.

Richard Urban, ULTRA Teen Choice Co-founder, said he founded the program because “it’s important to guide youth in the right direction.” He also said “abstinence programs are no longer allowed in DC schools.” The programs have been removed because special assistant to Chancellor Michelle Rhee, Richard Nayankori, said “the chancellor has placed a moratorium on all external providers of health and consumer education. Her goal is to ensure providers’ programs are consistent with DC standards.” Urban said he never received a response as to what standards were not being met.

Urban met with Nayankori in December 2007 and was told that “since he is opposed to the inclusion of gender identity and sexual orientation as topics of discussion for middle school, as proposed for the New Health Education Standards, that the Chancellor will not approve his program.”

The Washington AIDS International Teen (WAIT) group is a performing arts group that educates youth about the dangers of HIV/AIDS and empowers youth to use their talents to make a difference in the world, revolutionizing culture and modeling abstinence and faithful life partnership. The group includes middle-school to college-age students and believes in using talent to teach and stop HIV...