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Health Education & Active LearningHealth Education & Active Learning

Submitted by admin on Mon, 07/21/2008 - 08:32.
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Teaches girls to analyze, evaluate and make healthier lifestyle choices.

 

 

In response to the rising obesity rates among youth, the BET Foundation is implementing a national youth health empowerment initiative to:
  • Provide accurate and relevant information to help African-American girls cope with the physical and emotional health issues they are facing.
  • Empower youth with the training needed to become advocates for policy changes in their environment, which will in turn lead to healthy schools, families and communities.
  • Establish a healthy lifestyles support network for African-American girls.

This initiative, the H.E.A.L. Academy (Health Education & Active Learning), is  a multi-level, after-school education program that teaches girls of African descent to analyze, evaluate and make healthy lifestyle choices and empowers them with the knowledge, skills and opportunities to become active health advocates for policy changes in their schools, families and neighborhoods.

The program aims to:
  • Influence healthy lifestyle changes, encourage regular physical activity and promote optimum health among girls aged 10-18.
  • Cultivate girls into peer-group champions for nutrition, physical activity and obesity prevention lifestyles.
  • Facilitate the formation of strategic alliances in cities across the country.
  • Provide “tool kits” and in-service day training for teachers in communities wishing to establish a program in their area.
  • Leverage the critical role parents, teachers, principals, public school district administrators, community-based and faith-based organizations and public health practitioners play in halting the epidemic of childhood obesity
  • Monitor and track obesity and other health disparities (i.e. hypertension) rates in cities with H.E.A.L. Academies through a community-based participatory research design and evaluation model.
  • Projected Program Sites:
    • September 2009  - Washington, DC; Chicago, IL; Jacksonville, FL
    • September 2010 – Atlanta, GA; Detroit, Michigan; Los Angeles, CA
    • September 2011 – Sacramento, CA; St. Louis, MO; Houston, TX, New Orleans, LA

Fit, Flourishing, & Fly Girls Empowerment Summit, Coming to Maryland in September 2009!!! Click Here to Download more information about this two-day conference that will enlighten, encourage, and empower African American girls. Enter to win the Fit, Flourishing, & Fly Essay Contest. The deadline for the contest is August 19, 2009, so don’t delay. Click here now.