Fuerza Feminina (Girls' Leadership Through Sports)

Sometimes solutions to straightforward problems aren’t the most obvious strategies for success. More than 10 million young people aged 15-24 became newly infected with sexually transmitted infections (STIs) each year for the past decade. Still, no one wants to talk about sex. Develop a low-cost, accessible intervention strategy to decrease STI transmission risk that is acceptable to teens, parents, students and educators. Basically, create a program that addresses sex behaviors that doesn’t talk about sex. Using existing research, the entire teen ‘ecosystem’ was analyzed to identify activities and situations vulnerable to change that would also affect sex behaviors. The result was the development of an afterschool leadership through sport program for inner city girls that directly addressed the time frame (after school and before parents come home) in which most sex risk occurs. In addition to decreasing sex risk, the program also addresses childhood obesity, issues of low self-esteem, fitness, community building and leadership skills for girls.