R.I.S.E. To Your Dreams is a character based abstinence program that focuses on four character traits: Responsibility, Integrity, Self-Control and Empowerment. It teaches students how people who have these character traits in their lives are better able to practice healthy behaviors and avoid negative activities. It consists of 52 pages of text and 32 color and 12 black and white PowerPoint slides. The slides are also available as transparencies.

R.I.S.E. emphasizes the importance of marriage and what abstinence from sexual activity in preparation for marriage means. Abstinence until marriage is the only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and other associated health problems.

R.I.S.E. begins with the slide of a student standing at a crossroads. We talk about the choices students face after they finish school and how they should be thinking about what they want to do with their lives now. To realize their dreams for the future, students learn they must plan for the future, start that planning early, have a goal, and stay focused. We explain to do these things they must develop their character.

R.I.S.E. emphasizes that there are universal ethical values and strengths acknowledged by all people: responsibility, integrity, fairness, respect, loyalty, accountability, genuine caring for others, etc. We tell them that your character is who you are when no one else is watching. We stress that it only takes a moment to ruin a reputation, but it takes a lifetime to maintain a good reputation. It is very important that the students realize it is the choices they make in dealing with the pressures in their lives that make them who they are.

In talking about respect we emphasize to get respect, we must give respect.

We explain what it means to be responsible, and to take responsibility for one’s actions. When we talk about integrity we talk about doing what we say we will do, being honest, sincere and having sexual purity. We talk about how hard it is to regain trust once it is lost. Self-control is the glue that holds everything together. It’s doing what you should do even when it’s not what you want to do. We explain how self-control is something they will probably struggle with all their lives. That’s why it is so important for the students to learn how to exercise self-control now before they get into the wrong pattern.

When students have respect for themselves and others, and they are responsible, have integrity and self-control, they will be empowered to stay the course: finish school, make wise choices for their lives and save sex for marriage. They will have the foundation to be all they can be in life.

We want to encourage young people to internalize these characteristics to the point that they reflect WHO THEY ARE more than something they do. We want these characteristics so ingrained in them that doing what is right is their first choice rather than their last choice (after they suffer consequences).

We point out that saying no comes down to character – character built on responsibility, integrity and self-control. Character built on these traits leads to good choices; weak character leads to bad choices.

We begin the second day talking about how our mind, will, and body work together to make us a whole person, and we discuss how everything originates in the mind as it responds to what comes to the body through the five senses.

While you can’t always control what comes into your mind, you alone allow what comes in to stay there. The old saying "Garbage In = Garbage Out" is applicable here.

We have to set our will to do the right thing and make the right choices.

All of us have basically the same physical needs: food and water to survive, clothes to wear, shelter for a place to sleep. Just as real as physical needs are, we also have social needs.

All through life we have a need to belong and be with others. We talk about how this need to belong or "fit in" was the reason given in several of the cases of school shootings in the past. The student shooters who survived in Jonesboro, Arkansas and Pearl, Mississippi, when asked why they opened fire on their classmates both responded, "We did not fit in", and, "nobody accepted us".

In every known culture or society the institution of marriage is acknowledged as the environment for two people to live together and provide for children the care, attention, and love needed for healthy relationships. Too often a teenager will engage in premarital sex to feel this sense of belonging. Unfortunately, the relationship based on infatuation, lust or this need to belong will be temporary and will compound future problems.

During this session we talk about the differences in the sexes: how boys respond to what they see and how girls respond to touch.

In this section we discuss how unmet needs such as loneliness, low self-worth, lack of love, acceptance and maturity and a desire for intimacy are what drive some young people into an intimate relationship. Internal drives or influences can pressure him/her into situations that cause regret later.

In this section we discuss that when a 12 year-old dates there is a 91% chance of that teenager having sex before graduation. As the age that a teen starts dating goes up, the percentages go down.

Here we talk about the outside pressures adolescents feel from their peers, television, magazines, and their music. We ask what type of music they are listening to and would they want their younger siblings to listen to the same music. We talk about how the media influences they way they think and act.

In this section we talk about the difference between lust and love, and how love always seeks the best for the other person while lust wants its own desires met. Love is selfless while lust is selfish.

In this section we talk about that any time a person has sex outside of marriage there are consequences. Always, no exceptions and those consequences can be emotional and/or physical.

Until now we have spent a considerable amount of time on the emotional consequences of premarital sex, and now we focus on some of the physical consequences. In this section we talk about pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. One of the common problems associated with teen sex of course is teen pregnancy. This not only can be devastating to a teen, the unborn baby and has a ripple effect on the teenager’s family, their finances, and even affects the community. Only 50% of teen mothers graduate from high school. Teenagers who drop out of school and have children out of wedlock live at poverty level.

However, pregnancy is not the worse thing that can happen to you. Being pregnant usually does not kill you. But there are sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) that do.

Before we begin talking about STDs, we emphasize that there is a 100% chance of being free of STDs if one chooses abstinence.

In this section, we encourage teens who have not had sex to continue to make that commitment to abstain from sex until marriage. We encourage them to encourage their friends to do likewise by telling them of the consequences they have learned in this presentation. Then we give them examples of how to keep their commitment, and how to say no to pressure by using assertive body language, by setting limits for affection on dates, how to practice what they will do in a given situation and how to stay out of situations that can get out of hand. We encourage them to practice with friends "how to say no" and how to develop good refusal skills.

For students who have already had sex, we tell them there is good news for them, too. It is never too late to stop and start over. Any day of the week they can choose to become abstinent. It is at this point that we use a potter’s wheel and clay to show how sexual purity can be reclaimed.

The students are shown a ball of clay and told the clay resembles their lives. Just like the choices a potter makes to form a vessel from the clay, their lives are formed by the choices they make. If a potter does not lay a good foundation for his pot, when he starts to bring up the walls, the walls will not stand. The same is true of their lives. If they do not lay a foundation for their lives based on responsibility, integrity, and self-control they will not be empowered to stand against the pressures that come against them.

However, even if they have made poor choices in the past and have had sex, they can reclaim sexual purity just like the potter can reclaim the marred clay. Just as it will take work for the potter to wedge and kneed the clay so it can be used again, it will take work for the teens to lay a good foundation.

We strongly encourage teens to not rush growing up, to take time to develop friendships, to not date too early – to take charge of their lives. Then, we tell them the benefits of saving sex until marriage: realizing their goals and dreams (graduate from school, plan for your future); increased self-respect and confidence; wholesome relationships; freedom from unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and a ruined reputation. They will go into their marriage free of guilt and/or fear. At this point we ask if the students want to sign a commitment card. If they do, we let them sign the card, then using a laminator, seal it in plastic. We do not pressure them but we do ask that they not sign one unless they are serious about remaining abstinent until marriage – the card they are signing is a contract.

In the appendix, there are games for the students to participate in that reinforce the message we have given.

. For every fact we state, we have a footnote and reference. These are the ones used in the Overview.

1. Page 7: Abstinence Statistics. Source: Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, CDC, Vol. 49, No. SS-5, June 9, 2000

Copyright 2002 by R.I.S.E. To Your Dreams, Inc.

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