Our Lady Flight Into Egypt ~ Mary is honoured as the Chief Patron of our Diocese of Port Elizabeth. In accordance with the official liturgical Pastoral Guide it is therefore elevated to a solemnity (big feast) for the local church and celebrated on the Sunday that occurs on 4th February or between the 4th and 10th February each year.
eDUCATION FOR LIFE
BEHAVIOUR CHANGE PROGRAMME
CONTACT
St Alacoque Doran, Assumption Convent, P.O.
Box 17, Grahamstown 6140
Tel/Fax: 046 622 3012 Email
1. What is Education For Life Programme
The Education for Life Programme owes its origins to a group of Ugandan Doctors, who were challenged to substitute despondency over the rapid spread of the AIDS pandemic with a programme that would help people, with emphasis on the youth, to change their behaviour, particularly with regard to their sexual activities. This challenge they accepted and came up with the Education for Life Programme which is essentially a journey through individual and communal Behavioural Change.
The Education for Life Programme is a Conversion process that leads participants through introspection to face the reality of their present situation to identify, name and own behaviour that is not compatible with living the Gospel values. With Jesus as the key focus, participants are led by prayer, personal reflection, dramas, songs, personal testimonies and videos, to see that unless they do change undesirable behaviour, life in the future will lose all dignity and become cheaper, promiscuous and valueless. The challenge is to accept the invitation to allow Jesus to truly become our "Life Giving Water". (John 4:7-16). With renewed confidence participants come to see that God and God alone can give us the love and life for which we yearn. The programme is an opportunity to grow into freedom of choice and intimacy, a process of becoming more fully human.
I believe the Education for Life Programme owes its success to the central element that faith plays in the whole process. To bring about sustainable change participants need to know that they are not alone but that God is there and will walk with them as they try to overcome the forces of darkness which are so strong in everybody's lives.
Of major importance to the whole programme is the belief that each participant needs to change, has the capacity to change, believes others can change and that change is brought about with the grace of God.
Aware that conversion is an ongoing process we believe that our youth having gone through the programme will have the necessary strength to sustain their commitments to the behaviour they desire to change, so to bring about a better society, to protect and treasure the most beautiful gift God has given us - LIFE!
2. Methodology: In understanding Behaviour Change the programme is broken down into three stages.
1. Know and accept the present reality
(behaviour);
Stage 1 Exploring Life
This is facilitated by:
a. telling the story
b. focusing
c. looking for what has been overlooked
PROJECTION it is important at the end of Stage I for participants to project what the future will be like if current behaviours do not change.
2. Choose and commit self to a possible
new behaviour;
Stage II the New Picture
This is facilitated by:
a. calling forth alternative goals
b. critiquing
c. Choice and Commitment
3. Act
Stage III Action
This is facilitated by:
a. asking what can be done
b. planning how to do it
c. committing oneself to doing it
This process forms the basis of the “Education for
Life” process. It is based on the ‘helping skills’ model
of Gerard Egan which is a behavioural and problem-solving approach.
As described each stage has three components which assist one to go through
that stage progressively. Each stage is dealt with in depth.
Although a large number of people have been trained in the programme in several dioceses, especially Tzaneen, Pretoria and Johannesburg it has no home from where it can operate. Nobody really claims it and the fear is that it will get lost and eventually die out.
The programme has to grow and develop so that our country's youth may have strength and courage to resist the temptations which they face daily, so that with informed decisions they can make greater choices and live better lives, hence beating the AIDS pandemic and loss of life.
"Let no one disregard you because you are young, but be an example to all believers in the way you speak and behave, and in your love, your faith and your purity." Timothy 4: 12
Sr Bernadette Duffy HC
SACBC
P.O.Box 941
PRETORIA 0001
Tel. 012-3236458
Fax 012-3266218
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