Alliance for the Family receives a $125,000 grant from USAID for evaluating the impact of values education on young children.

The United States Agency for International Development / USAID has awarded a $125,000 grant to Alliance for the Family / AFF for evaluating the impact of values education on young children in Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.

With this grant, the Government of the United States supports and encourages AFF’s efforts at implementing state of the art monitoring and evaluation systems so “the project does not stay within the classrooms but experts can actually prove if the values we transmit and the techniques we use in teaching them are successful—if they have a measurable impact on the children’s knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors,” says Cristina Burelli, Executive Director of AFF.

In a period of three years, 13,000 children between the ages of 8 and 11 will follow AFF’s Alive to the World / AW program within their regular school hours. They will be taught basic skills based on universal virtues and values such as responsibility, self esteem, self control and participation in community life that are intended to stimulate democratic behaviors.

Using the internet, they will periodically report on what they have learned, how they put it into practice, and how they rate the texts and instruction. These electronic reports—a new way of collecting data from young children in developing countries—will help AFF evaluate the degree to which the course affects behaviors. The Latin American Alliance for the Family (Caracas), which developed the course, will provide teacher training. Financial partners are the Alberto Vollmer Foundation, USAID’s Global Development Alliance, and the John Templeton Foundation.