Released on: August 22, 2008, 1:26 pm

Press Release Author: Amy Doucette/ARISE Foundation

Industry: Non Profit

Press Release Summary: Once labeled a troublemaker and at-risk kid himself, Edmund
Benson started the ARISE Foundation in 1986 to teach life skills to youth in the
juvenile justice system. Benson is now celebrating his 79th birthday by giving over
100 important books to the international nonprofit community by allowing them to be
translated and used under a creative commons license free of charge.

Press Release Body: North Palm Beach – Edmund Benson, former at-risk kid and founder
of the ARISE Foundation, is celebrating his birthday by giving a gift to the
international nonprofit community: the creative licenses of all of the 100 ARISE
Life Skills Training materials. Benson will allow the materials translated free of
charge into any language except for Spanish, for use in life skills training
programs around the world.

Benson and his wife Susan created the nonprofit ARISE Foundation in 1986. The
Foundation has since trained and certified over 5,000 instructors who have taught
over 3.5 million hours of ARISE Life Skills lessons in Florida alone. ARISE programs
are also used in Canada, Jamaica, England, Australia, the Bahamas, Bermuda, New
Zealand, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Bosnia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia.

ARISE Life Skills Lessons are designed to engage the at-risk population with
interactive, entertaining, easy-to-understand lessons about important topics such as
anger management, self esteem, peer pressure, drug and alcohol prevention,
networking, interviewing and keeping a job, domestic abuse, etiquette and manners,
conflict resolution, bullying and violence, health and hygiene, stress management,
stranger and Internet safety and much more.

The ARISE lessons work because they inspire conversation, involvement and
creativity. The ARISE life skills lessons are not sequential. Each stands on its
own, making them ideal for transient populations. Everyone starts fresh with each
new learning experience.

ARISE is used in public, alternative and charter schools, juvenile justice
facilities, residential treatment centers, faith-based organizations, Boys & Girls
Clubs, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s After School All-Stars program and organizations
that educate orphans and other troubled youth around the world. The programs work
especially well for kids, teens and adults with limited reading and writing
capabilities.

ARISE recently started a new workshop, called CHOICES: Drop It At The Door, aimed at
stopping the “boomerang” effect of employees bringing stress and anger home from
work and vice versa. The CHOICES training emphasizes employee retention through
stress and anger management. The workshop’s accompanying training and resource
manual teaches participants that the choice is theirs: stay angry and let stress and
unhappiness infect every aspect of their lives, or chose a healthier path.

An organization interested in the free creative licensing program can call ARISE at
(888) 680 – 6100 or visit the ARISE website at http://www.ariselife-skills.org to
download the creative license kit and get more information.


Web Site: http://www.ariselife-skills.org

Contact Details: Edmund Benson, The ARISE Foundation
824 US Highway 1
Suite 240
North Palm Beach, FL 33408
(561) 630-2021
ebenson@arisefoundation.org