Atrevete
Honduras
Teen Pregnancy and Suicide Prevention.
In partnership with Vida Abundante in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, we will be working with a compassionate and brilliant team of innovators to take an existing teen pregnancy and suicide prevention program called “Atrevete”, into all major public high schools nation-wide.
Bringing Innovation to those that need it most.
MWI is excited to announce a collaborative partnership with Denver based artificial intelligence & data technology firm, Simpact, to develop predictive modeling tools we believe will lead to major breakthroughs in our Atrevete programming that will be used in reducing the large number of unaccompanied adolescents attempting to cross the US Southern Border. Simpact, will be designing predictive models using machine learning with goals of developing software tools to identify students most likely to drop out of school and attempt the dangerous trip to the US border. MWI will then implement intervention programs targeted towards the highest risk students through our Atrevete program.
Simpact’s predictive modeling tools and analysis will also serve to identify the most effective intervention methods for preventing those outcomes. Baseline data and preliminary surveys suggest a significant correlation between school retention rates with both teen pregnancy and youth emigration.
In March of 2023, we collected responses from nearly 7,000 students in the regions of Choluteca, Gracias, La Union and Santa Rosa, Honduras. We continue to follow these students throughout the year and are collecting output data from the public schools on retention, drop out and emigration attempts. The goal of this predictive model will be a tool that under-resourced schools throughout Central America can use to accurately predict and prevent young people from dropping out of school and making the dangerous trek to the US border.
We will systematize, replicate, and scale “Atrevete” nation-wide.
In 2010, Vida Abundante Iglesia Cristiana's founding Pastor, Evelio Reyes, received news that one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the Western Hemisphere included the region of Gracias, Honduras where he and his wife had attended high school many years earlier. Provoked to action, Pastor Reyes sent a faithful church leader named David Andres to research and begin a self-esteem focused teen pregnancy prevention program in the public high schools of the region.
Beginning in 2011, David established the program known as Dare Learn Decide, that would grow quickly to 10 public high schools representing around 4,500 students annually. Over a 10 year period, Dare Care Decide succeeded to reduce annual teen pregnancy rates in those high schools by 88%. Further, due to the program’s success, a region that was known for one of the highest rates of teen suicide has not seen a suicide in over 3 years.
In June of 2021 Pastor Reyes invited MWI to investigate the program and other collaborative opportunities. Seeing first-hand the innovative approach and remarkable results, MWI offered to partner with Vida Abundante to systematize, replicate and scale the this program nation-wide.
To test this concept in other regions of Honduras, the project team has rebranded Dare Learn Decide to ATREVETE, and we launched our pilot in January 2023, both in the Gracias and Choluteca regions of Honduras.
One is not enough
For us, one is not enough - one student, one family, one village. The problems are too great and the time is now to think and act BIG. Through your generosity, you could be the Catalyst that helps to change nations!
