Edmund Benson, Co-Founder of ARISE, Celebrates His 80th Birthday by Contributing Over 100 Life Management Skills Curricula to the International Nonprofit Community

North Palm Beach, FL, September 4, 2009 — Edmund Benson, former at-risk kid and founder of ARISE Foundation, is celebrating his 80th birthday by giving a gift to the international nonprofit community: the creative licenses for all of the 100 ARISE life-skills curricula materials. Benson will allow the materials to be translated free of charge into any language (except Spanish, which has been done), 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 five thousand group facilitators who have taught over four million documented hours of ARISE life-skills lessons in Florida alone. ARISE programs are also used throughout the US, in Canada, Jamaica, England, Australia, the Bahamas, Bermuda, New Zealand, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Bosnia and Kazakhstan.

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

ARISE lessons have a memorable impact on troubled youth because, for the most part, they are conducted by ARISE-trained group facilitators who carry out guided group discussions with exciting activities that are easily understood and put into practice. ARISE group facilitators inspire conversation, involvement and interest. 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.

Edmund Benson is also making available for translation to qualifying nonprofit organizations the remarkable two-day 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 CHOICES: Drop It at the Door 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 choose a healthier path. There are also three memorable days of CHOICES: Drop It at the Door webinars. CHOICES is for employers who want employees to be successful in their personal and work lives. It is perceived as a huge benefit by staff.