Red Ribbon Project (RRP) offers a FREE Youth Skills Building (YSB) program to all schools in Eagle County. This program has been in existence since the year 2000, and most recently has been enhanced to include the numerous issues that today’s youth are dealing with, such as substance abuse, healthy relationship building, coping with adversities, and improving communication. The YSB programs’ innovative efforts provide young people with the tools to promote healthy development, realize their full potential, and make meaningful contributions to their communities. The program fosters emotional well-being and builds a foundation for healthy decision-making.
Botvin LifeSkills Training is a research-validated substance abuse prevention program proven to reduce the risks of alcohol, tobacco, drug abuse, and violence by targeting the major social and psychological factors that promote the initiation of substance use and other risky behaviors. This comprehensive and exciting program provides adolescents and young teens with the confidence and skills necessary to successfully handle challenging situations. The program is a 10-12 hour program that typically runs once a week in the area schools.
In addition to the Botvin program, RRP also offers Puberty and Maturation programs (described below) for free to all middle and high school students in Eagle County. If your school is interested in scheduling these programs, please email info@redribbonpro.wpengine.com
HUMAN SEXUALITY
Puberty and Maturation 5-8th grade
STI’s, including HIV 7-12th grade
Contraception and the Myths of Reproductive Health 8-12th grade
The word ¡Cuídate! means “Take Care of Yourself” which is the theme of this culturally based program designed to reduce HIV sexual risk and teenage pregnancy among Latino youth. Today all teens, including Latinos, face many health risks related to sexual behavior, such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STI’s). ¡Cuídate! helps Latino youth develop the knowledge, attitudes and skills to reduce these risks. The program emphasizes strategies such as sexual abstinence and condom use through activities that allow youth to acquire correct and reliable information about risk and disease, develop attitudes that support safe decision making, build skills to be able to abstain from sex and use condoms, and reinforce confidence in their ability to practice safer sex.
¡CUÍDATE! incorporates salient aspects of Latino culture, including familial-ism (the importance of family) and gender-role expectations (i.e. machismo, which is described as the man’s responsibility in caring for and protecting one’s partner and family). These cultural beliefs are used to frame abstinence and condom use as culturally accepted and effective ways to prevent teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV.
The purpose of The Red Ribbon Project’s free HIV testing is to provide free rapid HIV testing to residents in Eagle County. Eagle County is a rural community with an economy that relies on tourism and recreation. Therefore, in our community we see many Latinos and young adults. The testing program specifically serves this Latino population, the young adult population that comes with living in a resort community, and our High School youth. In the United States, people aged 13 to 24 account for more than a quarter of the 50,000 new HIV infections each year, and 60 percent of these young people have no idea they are infected, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
The National Institute of Health reported that community-based interventions designed to make voluntary HIV testing and counseling more accessible can increase the number of people who know their HIV status, and can prompt people—especially those at high risk for infection—to adopt safer sexual practices. An objective of RRP’s Free HIV Testing program is to build awareness in the community about behaviors that put people at risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STI’s); and through the counseling component of the free testing program, educate residents on safer behaviors so they can lead healthier lives.
The Red Ribbon Project allocates a portion of its budget each year for financial support for families and individuals who are burdened with bills associated with managing HIV/AIDS. Red Ribbon Project can also assist by referring people to other agencies for assistance. Confidentiality always applies in these situations.
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