Paradigm Shift

Dear friends,

For the past few weeks, birth control (of all things), has been all over the media because of the Administration’s recent decision to make sure that birth control is covered through health plans (except for those that work at churches and other houses of worship).

After the President’s announcement today to allow religious-affiliated institutions to opt-out of directly covering contraception they may oppose (insurance companies would then step in), still members of Congress are bent on dismantling this important advancement.

Please join Advocates for Youth, Campus Progress, Young Invincibles and fellow national, state, local and campus-based youth organizations by signing on to this statement in support of the Administration’s decision as well as including contraceptive coverage in student health plans. Young women are too often the ones who can’t access contraception because of cost, and we want to make sure youth voice is heard in this national debate.

If you are not a youth-focused organization, but you have a “youth arm,” please consider signing-on the statement using the name of your youth arm. While we appreciate the support of all organizations working on access to contraception, we want to ensure that young people’s voices are heard on this important issue.

To sign-on, please email the following information to Sarah at sarah@advocatesforyouth.org by Tuesday, February 14th at noon EST.

Organization’s Name:

Location:

Campus (if applicable):

Contact Person’s Name:

Contact Person’s Email Address:

We’re hoping to deliver a the letter to Congress before any vote happens on this issue which could be as soon as early next week. Please share this with students you work with, as we welcome sign-ons from individual student organizations at college campuses across the country.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Sincerely,

Sarah

Sarah Audelo

Senior Domestic Policy Manager

Advocates for Youth

2000 M Street NW Suite 750

Washington, DC 20036

202.419.3420 ext. 14

www.amplifyyourvoice.org

www.advocatesforyouth.org

Cape Ivy welding the door into the frame. It stands locked before me but calls my name. Yet, you are afraid the dense underbrush will disrupt my senses. Afraid that my luck for lumber is a numbered Chinese wish to be laughed at for its poor English; as if its meaning, like its words, were foolish. If you don’t cover it with a white sheet grandbabies will fight over that bit of thrift future where you briefly dipped in ink and slid into the binding, what you were hiding. If you let me lay on the dark wood floor you put down to make the cold sting, the one that kept you both in bed, I will, in the crook of my arms and the bend of my knees, gather in every corner of my warm body the sounds that alarm you, the ones that call out the fears that echo in the canopy.

Tender shoot, you grew so far from home. Old love initials scarred into your bark. You bear it like an epitaph under which a buried soldier lies. Unable to rest with his fatal battle wound, he paces in your flesh and you linger on the front lines, the undertow of an empty shore sucking on your calloused fleet. But I can reach your moving limbs and the climb takes me closer to the lamp on your desk that followed me against what made sense, through a changing sky and zones of time. I can fall and tear my dress. I can bleed and will live. My scratched hands, the scar on your tummy, our scrapped knees, your leaves in my hair, are unmaking the bed I made this morning. Let me be what I am to you, the wild woman serving you tea in the room whose walls couldn’t stand a chance. Let me be, Benoni tree, let me be the bull in your branches building a mosaic from the fragments of your fish bowl.

Our 25th Anniversary of NEDAwareness Week is marked by the historic lighting of New York City’s Empire State Building in NEDA colors on February 28, 2012. Click here to see 25 years of awareness in action!
New guides and activities for 2012!

For Dads and Families…

Calling all dads! You’re invited to attend the launch of the Parent, Family & Friends Network Webinar Series, featuring the free webinar For Dads by Dads: Tips for supporting a child with an eating disorder and practicing self-care. Led by NEDA Navigators Paul Cordero and Mike Polan, it’s a perfect opportunity for dads who want to learn and get support from other fathers, and anyone interested in the role of fathers in the recovery process. !

For Artists…

Calendar Contest: Submit your art for a chance to be published in the 2013 NEDA Calendar!

For Teens…

Register now to download:

Teen Activist Guide complete with media literacy how-to activity guides, tips for successful activism online, articles by young people who’ve made a real difference, creative activity guides, how to help a friend and more!
Teen Blogging Guide featuring tips on how to get started, stats on eating disorders, how to share your story & setting healthy boundaries on the internet.
And for the teen artists out there:

Teen Voices (NEDAwareness Week Partner Organization) Artist of the Month Competition! March’s theme is Beauty Is More Than Skin Deep. There are great prizes for the winner of each month, and an Artist of the Year will be selected to win a full scholarship (tuition, room, and board) to the renowned School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s Pre-College Summer Art Studio—a $4,000 value! Learn more!

For Print & Online Education…

New articles for print or online publication from authors Geneen Roth, Aimee Liu, Claire Mysko, Evelyn Tribole, Deb Burgard & Lisa Lee on topics including empowering girls, dangers of dieting, weight stigma and eating disorders in Asian-American communities. Register for NEDAwareness Week to download an article.

For the Workplace and Schools…

Distribute the free NEDA Toolkits CD-ROM: Fill out the free online CD-ROM request form on the PFN homepage and NEDA will send a copy, with a letter of introduction, to a local educational institution on your behalf. CD-ROM includes the Parent, Educator and Coach & Athletic Trainer Toolkits.

A free Educator Packet is available to registered participants and includes everything you need for great classroom activities:  Media literacy tools, activity list for teens, film list with discussion guide, grade school activity outline, printable bookmarks and flyers, and more.

Raise awareness in your workplace, school or other community setting. The discounted NEDAwareness Week Kits – including posters, pamphlets, NEDA pens, signs & symptoms bookmarks, and much more – are !

Events & Speakers…

Volunteers are available to speak at your NEDAwareness Week events! for a Volunteer Speaker in your area. Planning on speaking yourself?  Join us for the Volunteer Speaker Training Webinar with NEDA Ambassador Jenni Schaefer and NEDA Navigators Clinical Advisor Ilene Fishman, LCSW.  !

NEDAwareness Week events are taking place across the country. near you!

Holding an event? and post your events on the NEDA Website.

Partners…

NEDAwareness Week Partners will be holding creative, fun NEDAwareness Week activities and encouraging their constituents to join us in this national outreach effort. to learn about our partners!

Speak at the Annual NEDA Conference!

2012 Theme: What About Us? Diversity and Complexity in Eating Disorders

We are accepting session proposals for 2012 NEDA Conference until February 15, 2012. Click here to view the guidelines and submit your proposal today.

Submission deadline: 11:59 pm EST, February 15, 2012

Birth-Control Coverage Is Under Attack
Birth-control opponents are protesting the Obama administration’s decision to ensure birth-control coverage for millions of women.

Anti-choice lawmakers are so hostile to birth control that one representative called the new coverage policy “unrelated to the basic needs of health care.” How is birth control not basic health care when 99 percent of women use it at some point in the lives?

Help stop a bill that would take away birth-control coverage from millions of women.

Tired of letting Reality TV, Porn and Abstinence Programs dictate how we talk about Women’s Sexuality? Let’s create some honest conversation for a change!

Federally funded Abstinence-Only programs must teach “that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects”

~For more examples of what this taxpayer-funded $1.5 billion dollar program is teaching, watch talking bears share abstinence lessons.

What’s the biggest abstinence myth you ever heard? Did somebody tell you if you that women who had sex before marriage were dirty toothbrushes? Or that condoms were ineffective in preventing STDs?

Tell us today and we’ll publish your answers as part of our Get Real Survey. Help create shame-free, loud and proud information on sex and stop women’s lives being dictated by whispered myths.

What’s the biggest Abstinence Myth you ever heard? Share your answers

Watch Purity Ball scenes in the new “How to Lose Your Virginity” trailer here

Enjoy ‘Abstinence Week’ at the blog.We’re reprinting one of our favorite posts about ridiculous and dangerous US abstinence-only programs. It starts here.

Donate today in honor of honest and comprehensive sex education to support the completion of “How to Lose Virginity.” here

Next week’s conversation: Older Virgin Myths.

Want to keep talking? Join us on Twitter, follow us on Facebook or Tumblr, and submit your own anonymous First Person virginity story for the Blog. Watch the new trailer and tell your friends to join in as well!!

Thanks from Therese & Team Trixie
info@trixiefilms.com
http://www.trixiefilms.com