Engaging the faith-based community in non-sectarian service – abstinence-until-marriage peer education

HOPE worldwide, a faith-based, international, non-profit organization has successfully engaged in non-sectarian community outreach for the past 16 years. All programs have relied significantly on volunteers, the majority of whom are drawn from evangelical churches. The success of the outreach efforts was measured initially in outputs and matured into measurement of outcomes, all of which are free from any proselytization agenda. HOPE worldwide's abstinence-until-marriage program, Positive Choice, provides a clear illustration of successful collaboration with faith communities in a public health outreach program, devoid of proselytization or conversion goals. Positive Choice is a peer education mentoring program. Peer educators are required to complete a certification training that includes a final exam, a testimonial, and successful presentation of the program to a target audience of students ages 12-18. The program has been independently evaluated through use of pre- and post-tests as well as focus group qualitative evaluation. Results in both the quantitative and qualitative assessment has been affirmative. There have been significant, positive results in all 14 attitude questions and high expression of participant enjoyment of the program. At the end of 2006, there were over 200 certified peer educators in 29 US cities. over 1,000 beneficiaries and collaboration with 29 faith-based organizations as well as 6 secular organizations.