Download annual report 2009 in pdf format here

1. Introduction

Dear friends,

I would like to present to you the annual report about the activities and achievements of ACET Czech Republic in 2009. This was a year of breakthrough in which we achieved many positive changes to support our work of bringing a message of prevention to young people.

It is impossible to describe the breadth of work carried out by each lecturer: all the personal conversations with students, teachers, responding to letters, the preparations for events at schools, youth clubs, summer camps, concerts and workshops abroad. We could have accomplished it all as a team of full time staff, volunteers, donors and fans of our work. Our staff complement in 2009 was 3 full time educators (including the executive director), one part time educator, two external educators, an accountant and a fundraiser. All together forty volunteers gave lectures at schools. We set up regional subsidiaries with internal procedures and have had meetings of the regional coordinators (so far nine regional subsidiaries are active). Educators have been trained in new topics on ethical workshops, bullying, smoking and pornography.

One of our aims is to be involved in the support of developing countries. We started in 2008. Currently ACET Czech Republic is coordinating the support of 36 Ugandan children through a sustainable project ‘Light for Uganda’. This project consists in raising funds for schooling, so that these kids can get a good education, become in the near future more competitive and have a much better chance to find work.

We successfully concluded a project supported by the Tatana Kucharova Fund, dealing with the prevention of HIV/AIDS for children who have a hearing impairment or loss. In 2009 we visited ten schools and reached 421 young people with a help of a sign language interpreter. We have obtained very positive feedback and an offer to continue working with us.

Last year was a milestone for our organization, because we successfully obtained an ESF grant for the next three years 2010-2013. It is a privilege as well as a challenge to successfully accomplish all that we aimed to achieve.

I would like to thank all members of the Board for their work, input and help. Together we have refocused our direction and moved the mission of our organization forward: I am convinced that we will make our work more and more efficient.

I would like to thank our fundraiser, accountant and interpreter/translator. I could hardly imagine a sustainable existence of ACET Czech Republic without their help.

I must not omit thanking all our sponsors, donors and fans of our work from the Czech Republic. They continue devotedly to send money for this important work among the young generations.

Finally, no small thanks belong to the representatives of ACET UK, who firmly stand behind our organization.

Mgr. František Krampota Director of ACET
Executive Director of ACET Czech Republic 

2. History of the association

ACET Czech Republic was founded in 1993. Number and date of registration at Ministry of Internal Affairs: o.s. ACET ČR: II /s - OS / 1 - 28186 / 95-R

3. Mission

ACET ČR is committed to serve people of all ages to educate them and help them fulfil their physical, personal and spiritual needs and is helping in the prevention of risky behaviour by young people that can lead to HIV/AIDS. ACET Czech Republic is a member of the ACET International Alliance (AIDS Care Education and Training).

ACET undertakes the following activities:

• Raising awareness, promoting a healthy life style, HIV/AIDS prevention and prevention of social-pathological phenomena
• Working with children and young people
• Organizing conferences and seminars both in the Czech Republic and abroad
• Encouraging Czech people to take up an objective opinion toward AIDS issue
• Helping to set up Christian Medical centres in order to practically help those, who are infected or affected by AIDS
• Cooperating with national and international organizations to create legislation, that may prevent the spread of AIDS
• Publishing methodological and promoting materials
• Setting up regional subsidiaries in order to work regionally
• Offering counselling services
• Offering lectures, educational programmes and materials
• Creating and realizing educational programmes in mass media
• Supporting out-of-school activities and leisure time for children
• Organizing charity activities and practical help for young people both in the Czech Republic and abroad
• Raising and provides contributions for courses, trainings, educational programmes, internships and charity work abroad
• Supporting interracial tolerance and mutual cultural and human understanding
• Supporting people from developing countries to get involved in sustainable development projects and become more qualified
• Setting up regional subsidiaries that provide various kinds of services. Their operational status is described in the ACET Czech Republic Organizational Regulations

4. Structure ACET Czech Republic

5. Programmes

5.1. Choose life

This programme consists of the lecture ‘Sex, AIDS and Relationships’. The educators’ target is to encourage young people to have a responsible approach toward sex by seeing sex in the context of healthy and long-term partnerships. The lecture highlights the damage drugs can do and promotes responsible behaviour before marriage and marital faithfulness. The goal is to encourage young people to change their behaviour and so reduce drug taking and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

Professional guarantee: Doc. MUDr. Jana HAMANOVÁ, CSc., Chair of the Czech Society of Teenage Medicine, Czech Medical Association of Jan Evangelista Purkyne

Scientific supervision: MUDr. Josef Křepela, a psychiatrist

Within the Choose Life project we also offer schools the following lectures:

Friendship and love

• The value of friendship, love and good relationships
• Dealing with loneliness and how to find a partner
• Building healthy and long-term relations; what builds or destroys our relationships
• Receiving and sending human sexual signals and the difference between male and female sexuality

Scientific guarantor: Prof. PhDr. J. Křivohlavý, CSc.

How to reduce and prevent harm

• Do we recognize and can we name various forms of sexual violence and harassment?
• Can we explain terms, such as abuse with or without touch?
• Are we able to recognise false myths about sexual violence?
• Do we know how to defend ourselves?
• What does the law say about these crimes? Who can we turn to?
• An important part of the lecture is a discussion on the psychological impact of this kind of violence as well as possible solutions.

Prostitution and promiscuity

• What are the current methods of pimps?
• How can we recognize hidden but dangerous manipulation, which threatens young boys and girls?
• What are risky areas and behavioural patterns that can ultimately lead to a young person being blackmailed and forced to become a prostitute?
• What does the law say?

Bullying

• Bullying
• Physical, psychological, sexual aggression at school
• Cyber-bullying
• Explanation of basic terms
• How to recognize harassment, how to deal with aggressors and how to help victims
• The session includes social games and training in how to behave in modelled situations. A cohesive group of people with healthy relations as an effective tool against aggressors is highlighted.

Smoking

• Smoking not only harms our health, it also harms our neighbours and steals our money
• Nobody starts smoking freely, but most are manipulated by commercials or by peer pressure
• Seven people out ten are not happy to smoke, but they ‘have to’. The mechanism of addiction is explained as well as how difficult it is to get rid of this habit
• Encouragement to not start smoking

Cults

• Spirituality is an integral part of human life.
• Any form of extremism is dangerous – so how can we orient ourselves in the jungle of modern cults?
• Are there religious cults only?
• Can anybody be caught: How important is a critical thinking and what is it?
• Important motto: to be well informed and be careful.

5.2. Programme ‘Choose life – an equal chance for all’

Since January 2009 we have been running the project "Choose life – an equal chance for all". This project is supported by the Tatiana Kucharova Fund and is focused on handicapped students with impaired hearing at elementary and high schools. These students need to have information about HIV/AIDS as much as those who have no hearing problem. We were surprised how excited schools were and how eager school directors were for us to present our programmes. We believe this work will be influential. The cooperation brought very good results and at ten schools we talked to 421 kids. Schools’ feedback was very positive and they are very keen to continue collaborating with us.

5.3. What they said about us

"Fantastic approach to students, your educator can capture students’ attention. Professional presentation, shocking facts, up-to-date info. Real stories, full of good advice, where one can find the help, info what to do. Very emotional as well as funny shots to get relaxed a bit."

Mrs. Beránková
English Grammar School, High School and Apprentice school, Pardubice

"The lecture was very beneficial for our adolescents. The form of education how to protect against deadly disease, what result unprotected sex can have and how to act to prevent infection, was very interesting and edifying. The true stories of drug-addicted people as well as pictures of HIV positive people were a deterrent. The educator did a great job to arouse students’ interest in such a topic."

High school, Elementary school and Kindergarden for hearing
impaired students, Stefanikova 549, Hradec Kralove.

Educators from ACET CZ provided the education programme in 282 cities, towns and villages in 2009.

They gave lectures at 729 schools and public events, in clubs and orphanages.

Educators provided 3,642 sessions for free to 65,755 students.

Number of reached students

We have reached 934, 024 students in the fifteen years since 1994.

Some members of ACET CZ on an education retreat in 2009

6. Other events in 2009

• National ACET CZ conference: 20 people attended, Peter Fabian, Chief Executive of ACET UK was a guest speaker
• New materials for students were published
• Some educators participated at the national awareness raising campaign tour ‘Exit’

• DVD ‘Municipal police: prevention of the criminality in the town of Chrudim’ was published. ACET CZ was involved in creating this DVD, which will be broadly distributed to the public, guests, AIDS prevention workers among others
• We participated in two live interviews in the National Czech TV about ACET and our work and about our support of children in Uganda
• An article was published in two regional newspapers (100.000 copies). This article can be found is also accessible on the website: www.denik.cz (Health section). This website has 9 million visitors a week. The Tatana Kucharova Fund is promoted in this article

• An article was written for the Sunflower Fund’s website
• An article about ACET activities in regional newspapers was published. These newspapers cover approximately 320,000 readers through 80,000 copies
• Some educators helped in flooded areas in Moravia
• We ran summer camps for youth
• We organized a football match in Uherske Hradiste in the municipality of the town. During the event our organization was promoted
• We carried out lectures in GO cams for young people from high schools
• We went on a monitoring trip to Uganda where we visited 22 children supported by Czech donors in their villages; 700 kilometres were driven, video and pictures describing their lives were taken
• ACET CZ coordinated help for these 22 Ugandan children to go to school and therefore be able to gain work in the future
• 18 educators participated in an ethical workshop
• Lectures of Mr. Graumann (one of the saved children of Sir N. Winton) took place in Chrudim (24th-26th November 2009)
• We became the main partner of the national project ‘A week for marriage’
• We actively participated in the campaign ‘A week against AIDS’ in Hradec Kralove and Chrudim municipalities. This involved nine schools with 536 students and eight schools with 900 students respectively.
• Regional subsidiaries were set up with regional directors appointed.
• We were succesfully audited by an external professional audit company.

7. Financial report - 2009

8. The Auditor’s Statement

"In my opinion the financial balance shows the true financial position of the ACET Czech Republic, civic association, based in Chrudim, on 31st December 2009. The results of their financial transactions are altogether in accordance with Czech accounting regulations"
Ing. Miroslav Cuhaj
auditor

9. A word of thanks

Dear Friends,
Last year was the fifteenth year since ACET CZ was founded by Stuart Angus and the fourteenth since ACET CZ was registered as a civic association. In this time we have journeyed far in carrying out work to prevent the risky behaviour of young people that can lead to HIV/AIDS. I am convinced, that all our work has a positive impact on young people in our country and that this journey will definitely influence the future of those young ones whom we have addressed. I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this work!

Mgr. František Krampota Director of ACET
Executive Director of ACET Czech Republic 

I would like to thank the fund International Needs for a long-term collaboration.

Givers from the Czech Republic

Ministerstvo práce a sociálních věcí, Ministerstvo školství, Pardubický kraj, Jihočeský kraj, město Chrudim, město Hlinsko, Maranatha, Fund for Education - Mezinárodní škola Praha Nebušická, F-nadace, Nadace rozvoje zdraví, Medicom International s.r.o., Greek Transport and Logistick Praha 10,  Kolínská lesní společnost, s.r.o., Hewlett-Packard, s.r.o., Kalibr Group, s.r.o., Fenestra-Wieden s. r. o., AC Ostrava, CB Chrudim, CBH AC Chomutov, BJB Karlovy Vary, KS Hradec Králové, Mgr. J. Coufalová, p. Maiwald A., paní Boroňová, p. Pospíšil J., p. Oliver Vít, p. Neužil J., p. Loula D., p. Ogrocki, p. Lupták M., p. Prudík R.

We thank all anonymous givers as well. We thank dr. Hamanova and dr. Krepela for their support and advice.