The Episcopal Commission for Catechesis and Catholic Education (ECCCE) in collaboration with the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) and Rex Publishing Company has launched a twelve-volume book series for children and youth entitled “Alive to the World”.
Centered on twelve books that can be used in or out of elementary and secondary school over as many years, this course presents an ongoing story about a group of friends who confront typical situations as they grow up. The program makes young people think about choices and consequences. At age appropriate levels, they have to consider family, friendship, peer pressure, romance, sex, love, marriage—and implications like loyalty, team work, personal responsibility, and respect for property, to name but a few. Over time, they learn that universal values make sense, that they form a coherent system, and, most importantly, that they open up a world of possibilities of health, happiness, and progress.
This book series on personal, social and health education has been tested successfully in Latin America, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Archbishop Socrates B Villegas, the chairman of the Episcopal Commission for Catechesis and Catholic Education “admits that this is a pro active response to the steady deterioration of Catholic values among our youth. The Church is not an “anti” institution. The Church is a teacher and caretaker of truly positive universal human and Christian values. The way to overcome the anti-family and anti-life bills in congress is to teach our youth and children what are truly human and Christian values.”
The books teach about sex and family in an age appropriate manner and using universal human values. Even non Christians can benefit from this book series.
“We will fight the anti-life and anti-family and anti-women bills in Congress by winning the minds and hearts of our youth. We will overcome these evil bills by the power of good, dedicated and well formed young leaders. The hope of the nation is the pro-family pro-life youth not the anti-life and anti-family congressmen.”
“I encourage all our Catholic universities, colleges and schools to avail of the book series from Rex Publishing Company and start using the series when the school year opens in June. It has a series for students and another series for teachers to assist them in the classroom instruction.”
"Alive to the World" was originally designed and produced in Spanish by Christine de Marcellus Vollmer, a member of the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Academy for Life. It is currently being promoted internationally by Alliance for the Family and has been widely distributed (in adapted form) in South America and in Sub-Saharan Africa.
More information on this program can be found in the Alive to the World UK website and in the following article by Zenit: VALUES-BASED SEX ED APPEALS TO HEAD, HEART - "Alive to the World" Program Called an Effective Alternative.
Mercator.Net also has the following laudatory article on this program: Alive to the World: a character education programme that works.
More information on this program can be found in the Alive to the World UK website and in the following article by Zenit: VALUES-BASED SEX ED APPEALS TO HEAD, HEART - "Alive to the World" Program Called an Effective Alternative.
Mercator.Net also has the following laudatory article on this program: Alive to the World: a character education programme that works.
The Zenit article mentions that this program has enjoyed the support of the late Alfonso Cardinal López Trujillo and his successor as President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Ennio Cardinal Antonelli.
The following is the promotional video for 'Alive to the World' in the United Kingdom:
