A Model New York Program to Keep Young Lives On Track

Each year, 750,000 American girls under the age of 20 -- most of them unmarried -- become pregnant. It’s one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the industrialized West. Those who give birth and become teen mothers -- more than half -- face often difficult futures: a greater chance of poverty, of dropping out of school, and unemployment. New York City has an especially high rate, with about 20,000 teen pregnancies each year. But since 1984, an after-school prevention program run by the Children’s Aid Society in New York has succeeded in halving the number of pregnancies among participants. As VOA's Carolyn Weaver reports, the effort starts young, with children who are ten and eleven years old.