Last year, 47 percent of high school students had sexual intercourse, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Approximately 400,000 infants were born to teen mothers.
Alarmed by this, Hillsdale College students of Respect Everything About Life and Love are attempting to fight today’s surge of sexual activity among teens.
REALL’s mission is to fight the prevalent hook-up culture by educating teens on the dangers of being sexually active, as well as the benefits of abstinence and respecting each other’s bodies. said junior Joelle Lucas, the program’s director.
Consisting of 13 students, the team meets on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. in Lane Hall. The students give presentations once a week to both middle schools and high schools that last from 45 to 90 minutes, said junior Korbin Kiblinger, a volunteer for REALL.
It all started in the 1990s, Lucas said, when a group of Hillsdale College students with a similar vision joined Alpha Omega Women’s Care Center to form Concerned About Teen Sexuality. While that effort collapsed some years ago, REALL was refounded by with Nancy DeBacker, who currently heads Alpha-Omega Women’s Care Center in Hillsdale.
“I was rather sheltered growing up,” Lucas said. “So going out into a world where kids are confronted with so many other problems that I didn’t have to face was an eye opener to me. It’s sad to see just how far our youth has deviated from living a pure life by setting a standard that has dropped so much.”
As a goal for this year, Kiblinger said the team will branch out to new areas including youth groups and public schools.
To prevent losing the audience’s attention, Kiblinger said the team tries to keep their presentations entertaining through skits and hands-on activities.
“Then we expand on it so the kids can understand what we’re talking about better,” Lucas said.
Delivering REALL’s abstinence-centric message does not come without its challenges, sophomore Antoni Germano said. Attempting to persuade people to adopt a certain lifestyle is ineffectual if they have already made up their minds.
“They tune us out and don’t listen because they know what we’re all about,” Germano said. “We still try to reach out to them because I personally want to let those people know that it’s never too late to change if they want to.”
While each of REALL’s members had unique reasons for joining the team, Germano said that he entered the team to offer a much-needed male perspective to dispel misconceptions about the way men view women.
However, REALL is not a one-way street of information, Germano said. By participating in activities with the rest of the team, the volunteers have learned lessons that apply to their own lives.
“There is a lot that I have been able to pull from my experiences with REALL,” Germano said. “A lot of things go into being in a loving relationship with another person…certain things that I can and others will be able to incorporate into their current relationship.”
So while the experience at REALL is fun, Lucas said, it is also one that needs to be taken seriously in the face of a community whose teens can be spared much pain and suffering with a little guidance.
Kiblinger encouraged fellow Hillsdale students to take the initiative to help REALL spread its message. He said that while at times thankless, REALL’s work is very important.
“The people we’ve recruited so far are super passionate about this stuff, and it’s very exciting to have people — both guys and girls — who want to get involved,” Kiblinger said.
“We’re just getting started.”
