(Photo courtesy of OneHope)
South Africa (MNN) ― As South Africa prepares to host the 2010 World Cup, medical experts warn about the need to protect visiting fans from HIV/AIDS. Although reports say the country's epidemic is stabilizing, South Africa still has the largest number of HIV infections in the world.
The virus has the worst impact in the communities around South Africa's platinum mines and diamond mines. Rob Hoskins with OneHope recently visited the area to work on implementing a biblically-based prevention program in the schools.
"The teachers said half of their students in that particular area with the platinum mines are orphans at this point," Hoskins said. "So we're stilling living with the incredible fallout of what happens around these mines where there's a lot of prostitution, where men are away from home, and then the whole community around these mines is being affected. So it's a devastating situation."
The program will focus particularly on reaching kids in 4th through 6th grades, Hoskins said.
"We're seeing that the age of sexual debut can be as young as 12 or 13 years old. So to come in with a teen program is almost too late in these situations."
Hoskins said the church should work to care for orphans and for people who already have HIV/AIDS, but the key to solving the problem is going to be "new values." These values have to reach the kids before they reach the age of sexual maturity. People working in orphanages and medical care tell Hoskins that every child who makes a wise decision is at least one less person the system will have to care for.
"That's really the only hope for these communities," he explained. "We must start with these kids at a very young age and teach them the principles that are in God's Word so that they're able to live a different life and a different reality than their parents and their grandparents."
To do this, OneHope provides curriculum and training for teachers to teach abstinence and character development from God's Word. Biblical truth can transform the way kids think about their sexuality. Hoskins explained what the program teaches kids.
"We say, 'You don't have to live as your parents and grandparents did, where the decisions they've made cause so much pain in this community.' We tell little girls, 'You were created in the image of God, and you're valuable to Him and to your community; don't give your virginity away so cheaply because you could be writing your own death sentence.' We tell young boys, 'Your manhood is not contingent on the women you sleep with; in fact, really being a man means waiting till marriage and abstaining.'"
OneHope researches the results of its program, and the results are good.
"Behavior is driven by beliefs and values," Hoskins said. "So if you can plant the values and beliefs that are in God's Word into these young minds and hearts, then when they come to a place where they're making decisions about their sexuality...we're seeing that it is actually reducing the incidence and prolonging the age of sexual debut, which is where we're going to see a change in the HIV/AIDS problem."
The centerpiece of OneHope is the Book of Hope -- a child's Scriptural harmony of the Gospels which tells the life story of Jesus. It only costs 33 cents to reach one child with the Book of Hope.
