Our after-school program takes place at Hoke County High School, located in Hoke County,   North Carolina.  It's called HYLIFe.  The name stands for Hoke Youth Life in Focus.  It was started by Mrs. Christina Davis-McCoy who is Executive Director of Blue Springs Community Development Corporation in 1998.  Actually Hoke High is located in Raeford, one of two city's within the county.  The other town is called Red Springs.  Hoke is a rural county located next to Fort Bragg, one of the world's largest military installations and Fayetteville--one of North Carolina's larger city's.

The program has several components--TPPI (pronounced "Tippy" and stands for Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative), Baby Think It Over (in partnership with TPPI) where we, as program participants, use Infant Simulators in our everyday affairs to get an idea of what it means to "really" have to take care of a baby.  We take them everywhere with us--home, to class, to lunch, to the bathroom, shopping.  You name it, and the baby goes too!  They cry, and wet, and want to be fed just like real babies.   All of us have to do it--high schoolers and middle schoolers.  P-leeez!!   As part of the program the guys also have a course called The Male Responsibility Curriculum.  They learn all about their responsibility in having sex.  And the best part of what they learn is not to have it all.  But then again, so do we.  It's called ABSTINENCE.  We also have tutoring sessions to help us in our regular school assignments.  It's a great program and all of the adults really care about us.  We can't get in unless our parents are involved.   Ms. Karen Wright and Mr. Abdul Haneef  (pictures below) have been our instructors every step of the way.

HYLIFe is great.  We've never had a program like it before.  We get to go to events, travel, have cookouts, go to plays, visit area colleges, do community service and service learning.   Service learning is when you do community service and relate what you do as a learning process.  We keep journals and discuss our experience.  We also relate the experience to what we are learning in the classroom.  The community service and service learning helps us understand our role as responsible citizens in the community.   We're learning that everything we do doesn't mean we have to be paid for it.   Just the simple act of picking up a piece of paper and putting it in the trash, if it is trash, is doing the community a service.  Oh, almost forgot.  We have snacks--real food breaks--fruit, juices, the nutritional stuff.

HYLIFe is a group with nice friends and a good opportunity to meet friends and have fun.  It teaches you about things teenagers go through and problems we have and teachers and friends that help us solve them.

We have such a great time in our computer labs, too!   We use two of Hoke High's state of the art labs.  And we've learned quite a bit and really want to test our online skills.  We'd like to share a little 411.  So check us out below and send us some mail.  We're always looking to make new friends.  By the way, we start new sessions of our pregnancy prevention program each semester during the school year.  Let us know about programs for youth in your community.  We're always ready to hear new ideas and share ours.  All of us didn't take pictures and provice information.  But as soon as we get them, we'll put it here.  OK? OK.  Hope to get email and chat online with you soon.   Cool.