Community Projects & Campaigns

The Association for Better Living & Education helps to develop programs around the world which improve conditions in local communities and open the doors to better lives for young people. While these programs are generally operated directly by one of the four major organizations with which ABLE works, the Association for Better Living & Education plays a major role in assisting the initial establishment and development of such programs.

Typical of such programs are:

The World Literacy Crusade
An inner city literacy program, the World Literacy Crusade (WLC) was created as one of the responses to the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Since that time it has provided literacy skills and unleashed the learning potential of literally thousands of young people. Most of the youth taking services at the World Literacy Crusade centers around the United States can be classified as “at-risk” and many are referred to WLC by probation departments. Nevertheless having gained the literacy skills to succeed in life, it is typical to find graduates leave gang life behind them, cease criminal behavior and become productive members of their community—and are much happier personally.

"I had trouble growing up, because of my color and my environment. I got into drugs and gang-banging, and I got in too far and I got myself shot. I wound up in this program here in Compton and all of that is totally in the past now. The Study Technology is powerful. It makes you want to learn, makes you your own teacher. These people stuck with me until I woke up and realized that I could learn and that I wanted to."

V.L., World Literacy Crusade Graduate

Hollywood Crime Prevention
Faced with severe problems from gangs, drug dealers and associated violence, ABLE assisted others in the community to organize a neighborhood improvement program to address these threats. ABLE helped to organize a neighborhood watch program in conjunction with the local police department, ran neighborhood clean-up campaigns, broadly distributed The Way to Happiness in the community and put up lamp-post banners with the precepts from that book. The immediate result was a substantial drop in crime in the area where this program was run—and a safer community for all.

Education Alive
This South African program was created in 1975 when the country was still strongly in the grip of Apartheid and the Black community was systematically denied equal educational opportunities. Since that time it has provided learning skills for approximately two million children in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Education Alive has also trained tens of thousands of teachers in the region so that they can use the methodologies for study developed by L. Ron Hubbard.

Narconon Drug Education
Narconon drug education lectures are bringing the truth about drugs to children and adults around the world. In 2003 more than 421,000 people were educated about the dangers of drugs through these lecture programs. While most of the lectures are delivered to school children, such lectures have also been provided to drug counselors, police and government personnel around the world.