By Jason Smith
Associate Editor of the Sphinx
A program which educates adolescent males in South Miami-Dade County about health, family values and domestic violence prevention recently received a national award for health advocacy from Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated.
The Iota Pi Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. received the fraternity’s highest honor for local efforts to educate youth on reproductive health, responsibility, and manhood through the Project Alpha National Program.
The Project Alpha Award recognizes chapters which set the benchmark for the fraternity’s health advocacy initiative through robust programming and measurable outcomes. The award was presented at the fraternity’s international general convention in Indianapolis, Indiana on July 17, 2021.
For the members of the Iota Pi Lambda Chapter, the award recognizes the service they provide to the communities of South Miami-Dade County which include Richmond Heights, Perrine, Naranja, Homestead and Florida City.
“Project Alpha embodies Alpha Phi Alpha’s collective efforts to increase reproductive health awareness, reduce teenage pregnancy rates, and decrease STI transmission rates among adolescents and young adults,” said Leslie Elus, Chapter President. “Data provided by chapters is used to shape the Project Alpha curriculum to meet the evolving needs of the community, direct public policy initiatives, legitimize and foster future collaborative partnerships with national health nonprofits.”
The chapter’s Project Alpha Program is a hybrid interdisciplinary health series delivering virtual presentations to students attending in-person and virtual classroom settings. The four-part series was conducted over the months of February through May. Each month, it addressed a different topic from the National Project Alpha Curriculum. Given this model, Iota Pi Lambda was able to introduce its program to schools as supplemental instructional lessons, expanding the scope of the schools’ preexisting science, health, and wellness core curriculum. Each session reached over 300 middle and high school students.
Their nonprofit partners – the Iota Pi Lambda Education Foundation, Inc. (IPLEF), Men of Tomorrow Youth Program (MOT), AIDS Health Foundation (AHF), March of Dimes (MOD), Planned Parenthood, Dr. David Clay Practice, Community Health of South Florida, Inc. (CHI) and The Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment – were vital to ensuring the most relevant, up-to-date information was covered from the National Project Alpha Curriculum.
“Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated’s willingness and capacity to provide service and advocacy has positively impacted the health of families and communities,” said Dr. Sharetta Remikie, Director of Maternal Infant Health for March of Dimes.
Since 1980, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. has partnered with MOD to implement Project Alpha. Project Alpha stands as one of the fraternity’s four major national programs with the goal of educating adolescent males on the tenets of fatherhood, family values, reproductive and maternal health, and domestic violence prevention.
“Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. has … provided an important link to the communities impacted by March of Dimes’ mission. As a valued, supportive, and strategic partner, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. collaboratively works with March of Dimes in ensuring that ALL moms are healthy and ALL babies are strong,” Dr. Remikie said.
