ADVOCATES FOR YOUTH

Advocates for Youth Launches Partnership with MTV for Fight for Your Rights: Protect Yourself Campaign

Young People Will Take the Lead in Nationwide Campaign to Promote Sexual Health

WASHINGTON, DC (April 16, 2002) Advocates for Youth today announces its partnership with media giant MTV to provide thousands of young people around the country with opportunities to participate in sex education forums, become peer educators, and express their support for honest sex education. The yearlong campaign, Fight for Your Rights: Protect Yourself, dedicated to informing and empowering young people on the issues surrounding their sexual health.

More young people cite sexual health as a top concern than any other issue, and three in four say they are not getting all the information they need to make informed and responsible sexual health decisions. "For too many years young people have been viewed as mere statistics and as passive victims," said James Wagoner, President of Advocates for Youth. "This campaign will help change that perception as young people take leadership roles in educating one another about sexual health and fighting for programs and policies that respect young people's right to information."

Over the next year, Advocates will work with MTV to improve young people's access to sexual health information by coordinating up to 100 sex education forums across the country; providing MTV viewers with opportunities and skills to become peer educators; empowering MTV viewers to take action in support of comprehensive sex education; and spotlighting the important work youth activists are doing across the United States.

Noting the fact that over one-third of school districts in the U.S. have abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that censor information about contraception, Wagoner said, "Nobody should be promoting ignorance in the era of AIDS. Young people have the right to information that could protect their health and save their lives."

Fight for Your Rights: Protect Yourself is the latest installment in MTV's Emmy-award winning Fight for Your Rights pro-social initiative, and will focus primarily on HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and unintended pregnancy. In addition to its work with Advocates for Youth, the campaign will include special programming, public service messages, and one of the most comprehensive sexual health websites for youth. The campaign will launch with MTV's First National Sex Quiz, the first in a series of special Fight for Your Rights: Protect Yourself programming to air throughout the year.

Advocates for Youth fights for young people's rights to honest, realistic sex education, family planning, and effective HIV/STD prevention programs in the United States and in developing countries. The organization believes that adolescent sexuality is normal and healthy and promotes the philosophy of Rights. Respect. Responsibility.^® - Treat young people with respect, provide them their right to information and services and they will act responsibly.

###

Note to Editors and Producers: For more information or to set up an interview with adolescent sexuality experts, please contact Bill Barker at (202) 419-3420.

RETURN TO INDEX OF PRESS RELEASES >>