What is Crossroads?

Vision of CrossRoads

To transform communities in crisis with hope, life and truth.

CrossRoads Provides Solutions

CrossRoads is a strategy that provides educational, character, health and spiritual solutions solutions to communities devastated by social crises like HIV/AIDS. It is centered around the Life at the CrossRoads curriculum, a highly-interactive program created by educational, medical and youth services professionals. The curriculum, which teaches life skills and character development, can be presented during the course of an average school semester. It can also be modified to fit within other settings or in the context of most cultures.

A Risk-Avoidance Solution

CrossRoads presents a unique risk-avoidance message. The main reason high-risk behaviors among youth continues to grow across the globe is because people make poor choices and engage in high-risk behavior. Youth need strong character, a positive worldview and the ability to make good choices in order to most effectively avoid the devastation that high-risk behavior brings. However, people are not born with good character—they must learn it and practice it daily.

The CrossRoads strategy, by emphasizing healthy relationships, in the context of good character, systematically helps youth build good character, so they can avoid whatever high-risk behaviors they might face.

A Community Solution

Another asset CrossRoads offers is the involvement of community stakeholders. CrossRoads representatives instruct and certify educators, health professionals, faith and youth workers to teach the curriculum. Those who are certified then present the curriculum in schools, and many other settings. Aspects of the curriculum also actively involve parents to participate in the program with their children.

CrossRoads can also directly benefit the community in other ways, from helping inmates in prisons to those recovering from substance abuse, to those who are jobless. For instance, Youth Enhancement Services (YES), a non-profit organization in Jamaica that helps train people with job skills, uses the curriculum heavily in their program, and currently has a 80% success rate in job retention among their graduates. Additionally, 5% of their graduates finish high school and have gone on to receive a university education. Also, the Salvation Center, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Samara, Russia, uses CrossRoads in their programs. Thus, CrossRoads has the ability to foster a truly community-wide solution to the crises that plague them.

A Versatile Solution

Although CrossRoads is used most often as a direct response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, its focus on character and life skills development has also made it an effective solution to other societal crises, such as violence, drug abuse, teen pregnancy and joblessness.

History

CrossRoads launched in 1995, following the “ABC” (Abstinence, Be faithful and Condom use) model used in Uganda – focusing on “A” and “B”.
CrossRoads developed a 30-session Life Skills and Character curriculum (Life at the CrossRoads) as its centerpiece for school based trainings. This curriculum is now available in 15 languages.
CrossRoads held its first Teacher Training in Libreville, Gabon in 1996.
CrossRoads has been initiated in 75 countries, training and certifying teachers, health professionals, counselors, youth workers, faith workers, NGO’s and even governments to take this strategy to their communities.

Tested and Proven Solutions

Since its implementation in 1995, CrossRoads has formed partnerships in 75 countries. It has earned the respect of governments, NGOs and educators around the world.

Gladys Kokorwe, Member of Parliament in the Kweneng district of Botswana, said recently, “[the] skills acquired by participants through the [CrossRoads] workshop are key in bridging the communication gap between adolescents and adults, especially in the era of HIV/AIDS […] It is admirable that some organisations are still determined to impart good moral values to the youth.”

V.A.Proudnikova, the Deputy director of the Department of Science and Education of Samara region in Russia, says,
“Your work is extremely important for our region as it helps to bring up a young generation with high morals, able to make a right choice in their life.”

Dr. Denes Banhegyi, Director of the Department of Sex Education and AIDS Prevention for the National Institute for Health Promotion in Hungary, says, “[Young people] need to determine and develop the appropriate value system, self-worth, a sense of respect for others and plans for the future. The Youth at the Threshold of Life [the name CrossRoads goes by in Hungary] sex education and character development program … seeks to provide help in realizing and implementing these things.”

And Matthew Monberg, COO of the Russian orphan ministry Children’s Hope Chest, says, “CrossRoads International has developed a powerful array of tools to effect true and lasting life-change. By focusing on what matters most in life—your beliefs, your character, your dreams—the CrossRoads strategy is saving thousands of young lives from the horror that is HIV/AIDS. Children’s HopeChest has partnered with CrossRoads for many years in helping reach at-risk orphans in Russia with this incredible material.”

CrossRoads Results

Since CrossRoads began in 1995, there have been:

Over 50,000 teachers trained in 30-hour conferences to use Life at the CrossRoads curriculum.
Over 5 million students taught the curriculum in classrooms through the CrossRoads strategy.
5.7 million people received instruction through other CrossRoads strategies such as seminars and multimedia.