South American Division

Adventist School Develops Project to Prevent Early Pregnancy

The students had to calculate the cost of a baby, learn about human reproduction, and God's plan for the family, among other topics.

June 30, 2023

Brazil

Daniel Gonçalves

Project talks about the challenges of raising a child and the right time to form a family (Photo: Disclosure)

Eighth-grade students from Florianópolis Estreito Adventist Academy had a different experience last week. They had a baby! Not literally, but illustratively, to understand the responsibilities of early pregnancy. "Having a child is a blessing. They are an inheritance from the Lord, as it is written in the Bible. But there is a correct timing, which is with the natural formation of a family at a mature age," explains Dolores Rosa, school principal.

The project took place from June 12–16, 2023, and involved all ten curriculum subjects. The students had to calculate the cost of a baby (math) and learn about human reproduction (science), God's plan for the family (religious education), production of the birth certificate (Portuguese), and vaccination, among other topics. The teenagers also made a baby out of a five-kilogram sack of rice in art class. Thus, during the whole week, including at home, they carried this baby.

Sometimes, a recording of a baby crying at school would be triggered, and everyone gave their babies attention; even their diapers were changed. "They find it fun. But they have developed affection. And the best part, awareness and the risks of teenage pregnancy. The message is being planted," Rosa points out. In Brazil, the rate of teenage pregnancy is now 2 percent higher than in the last decade; girls ages 10–20 account for 25 percent of the births in the country, according to the Ministry of Health.

For the parents of the students, this experience was enriching: "The project brought Vinícius a different impression about the responsibilities involved in taking care of a baby. Here at home, we embraced the project, and as a family, we encouraged our son to assume all the responsibilities that parenthood demands. At the end of the week, he confessed that he was tired and that he never imagined that taking care of a rice baby would be so tiring, let alone a real one," says Mirian Coelho, mother of student Vinícius Miosso Coelho.

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Photo: Disclosure