What is the Romance Academy?
The Romance Academy is a five month project supporting and mentoring twelve young people as they challenge themselves and their community cultures with an exploration of the sexual abstinence lifestyle.
Why does it transform lives?.
We have discovered how issues of sexual intimacy and identity act as a tipping point or doorway for young people into all other areas of their lives. What they have gained from the project stretches beyond sexual health awareness. They have been given the safe space and arena for assessing, challenging and living out new ideas and attitudes and ultimately developing values and skills that they take into the whole of their life.
Our Core Belief
At the heart of the Academy is the belief that sex should be saved for loving and faithful relationships, ideally marriage. We also recognise that as well as understanding the mechanics of managing relationships and sex, young people benefit from exploring what it means to relate as a man to a woman (or vice versa!). The very basics of relationships are explored.
The Pledge
The young people sign a statement to say that they have chosen to pledge their commitment to the Romance Academy. This commitment involves giving up sexual activity for the duration of the project, holding themselves accountable to others in the group and supporting them in return, and evaluating and challenging current cultural attitudes to sex and relationships.
Self Discovery
Through a series of group meetings and structured, practical education activities, the project focuses on building community within the group and on self-discovery. Unlike traditional PSHE lessons, however, it is most definitely not a taught programme.
The Romance Academy actively seeks to draw young people from a variety of ethnic, social and economic backgrounds. The Romance Academy is particularly successful in integrating young people from different backgrounds, cultures and value systems and with different needs, into a positive peer network where they felt safe to explore issues. It enables them to make significant life choices. In many cases it considerably enhanced their self-esteem and affected their attitude no only to sex, but also to drugs and alcohol.
Mission statement:
To provide the complete sex education package.
Vision statement:
We see this process of peer-led sex education, supported by trained Youth workers, spreading from Harrow across the UK.
Why has Romance academy worked?
We've identified the following as being the key distinctives of this project.
Community
The group has become a community not just a class being taught; we have created a self-help group along the lines of AA and similar groups.
Self Discovery
The teaching is accomplished by sharing values prompted from the leaders, but then developed and discussed within the group; there is a real sense of self-discovery.
Passionate Leadership
The leaders are fully committed to the values being taught and are passionate about their desire to see change in the teenager's lives; for them it's definitely not just a job!
Complete Package
The values, training and activities look at the whole of life and relationships. It's not just been about sex, condoms and STI's! We have a complete sex education package.
Become a Supporter and help us change a nation
If you would like to be kept informed about Romance Academy and all that is happening please fill out a supporters form and we will kept you in touch with our monthly newsletters.
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