PPCO Co-Hosted Screening of The Education of Shelby Knox
The Education of Shelby Knox played to a full house at the Arena Grand Theatre in late February. Shelby was in Columbus for the event and talked with students after the film. PPCO co-hosted the screening in partnership with Kaleidoscope Youth Center, The Columbus AIDS Task Force, Ohio AIDS Coalition, Concord Counseling, and Directions for Youth and Families.
The organizations are teaming up to organize a local group of students to implement Advocates for Youth's "Keep it REAL" campaign to end censorship in American schools.
The film is a coming-of-age story about a southern teen campaigning for comprehensive sexual education in Lubbock, Texas. The Education of Shelby Knox follows the efforts of the 15-year-old, self-described "good Southern Baptist girl." Knox has pledged abstinence until marriage. But when she learns the high schools in her county have some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and STIs in the state, she becomes an unlikely advocate for changing the schools' abstinence-only education policy.
The film follows her as she questions her upbringing and finally confronts her family and her pastor, declaring herself a feminist, liberal Christian. It was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival 2005 and aired on PBS's Point Of View series in 2005.
"Keep it Real" Student Campaign Being Formed to Combat Abstinence-Only Sex Education
PPCO, Kaleidoscope Youth Center, The Columbus AIDS Task Force, Ohio AIDS Coalition, Concord Counseling and Directions for Youth and Families are teaming up to organize a local group of students to implement Advocates for Youth's "Keep it REAL" campaign to end censorship in American schools.
A youth advocacy group is being formed that will educate their peers about the importance of comprehensive sexual education. Click here to sign up.
The United States has the highest rates of STIs, including HIV, among youth compared to other industrialized countries. Every day in the U.S. more than 10,000 young adults acquire an STI, 2,400 get pregnant, and 55 contract the HIV virus, according to The Alan Guttmacher Institute. Since 1996, the U.S. has spent more than half a billion federal, taxpayers' dollars to fund abstinence-only sex education.
The same Surgeon General's report also found that, "Providing information about contraception does not increase adolescent sexual activity, either by hastening the onset of sexual intercourse, increasing the frequency of sexual intercourse, or increasing the number of sexual partners. In addition, some of these (comprehensive sexual education) evaluated programs increased condom use or contraceptive use more generally for adolescents who were sexually active."
PPCO offers comprehensive sex-education programs for middle and high school students.
Count Me In Call 614-340-6735 for more information about the local "Keep It REAL" campaign.
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