Association for Better Living & Education - Form 990 (2003)
Part III: Statement of Program Service Accomplishments

Organization's primary exempt purpose

Description of program service one

Assistance to Social Betterment Corporations

The mission of Association for Better Living and Education International (ABLE International) is to reverse the social decay that threatens our society by resolving the devastating core problems of drug addiction, crime, failing education, illiteracy and plummeting morality.

ABLE International carries out this mission by promoting and supporting the use of social betterment technologies developed by philosopher and humanitarian, L. Ron Hubbard. In particular, ABLE International addresses four fields of social betterment through the programs it supports:

• Literacy and education
• Morality and values
• Drug rehabilitation and drug abuse prevention
• Criminal rehabilitation

In each of these fields, an organization affiliated with ABLE International utilizes Mr. Hubbard's technologies to effect social improvement. The assistance ABLE International gives these organizations is integral to its mission of social improvement.

The four key organizations that ABLE assists are as follows:

• Applied Scholastics International — in the field of literacy and education
• The Way to Happiness Foundation International — in the field of morality and values
• Narconon International — in the field of drug rehabilitation and drug abuse prevention
• Criminon International — in the field of criminal rehabilitation

One of ABLE International's functions is to assist social betterment organizations to acquire physical facilities to house their charitable and educational programs. In 2003, ABLE International assisted Applied Scholastics in acquiring and renovating a property in St. Louis, Missouri, for the purpose of establishing its international headquarters and teacher training facility.

In July 2003, ABLE International provided planning and programming to assist Applied Scholastics International with the Grand Opening of its headquarters, at which more than 2,000 attendees from around the world heard the testimonies to the successful results from the application of the educational technologies of L. Ron Hubbard. Keynote speakers included local US Congressman, Lacy Clay, Secretary of State for Education of The Gambia, a representative from the Ministry of Education in Denmark as well as actor, Tom Cruise. Also in attendance to show their support of the need for effective literacy programs, were the Vice-Secretary for Policy in Italy, a representative from the Ministry of Education in Zimbabwe, more than 25 local Aldermen, several Mayors, dozens of educators and local school officials and celebrities Anne Archer, Jenna Elfman and Isaac Hayes.

Professional trainers, tutors and educational specialists are now being trained at the Applied Scholastics International facility, to enable them to implement the breakthrough tools of Study Technology in all educational settings. As an example, Sengalese educators and public school teachers from the United States arrived to the Applied Scholastics International campus to do these courses immediately after the Grand Opening.

The facility also houses the Applied Scholastics International marketing and publishing division, Effective Education Publishing.

ABLE International and its continental offices further assisted Applied Scholastics International to achieve its objectives by:

- Publishing The Basic Study Manual and The Learning Book in Japanese which were released in Japan — the latter by actor, Torn Cruise.

- Helping the educational group, Education Alive in Africa, to train 29 teachers on Learning How to Learn and conducting a seminar on Study Technology to 700 students.

- Training nearly 5,000 teachers on Study Technology in the Mashonaland Central Region in Zimbabwe.

Also in 2003, ABLE International assisted The Way to Happiness Foundation International to acquire and renovate a building in Glendale, California, in order to house its international headquarters. This foundation distributes the book with the title The Way to Happiness, a common sense guideline to a happier, more successful life and authored by L. Ron Hubbard. The book includes 21 precepts for successful daily living that have relevance for anyone, regardless of race creed or ethnic background.

More than 5,000 people attended the Grand Opening of The Way to Happiness Foundation International facility in October 2003, and keynote speakers included the General Secretary for Education in the Palestinian Authority and the Deputy Director General for Human Resources in the Department of Correctional Services in South Africa.

ABLE International and its continental offices also assisted The Way to Happiness Foundation International in accomplishing a resurgence of morality by:

- Planning and marketing the distribution of more than 2.2 million copies of The Way to Happiness, a common sense guide to better living, throughout the world.

- Formulating a new promotional campaign for the distribution of The Way to Happiness using customized covers. Corporations, individuals and celebrities design their own cover for the booklet and distribute these in the hundreds or thousands to their friends and customers.

- Getting 10,000 copies of The Way to Happiness with a custom cover of a popular celebrity in Venezuela, distributed in Venezuela where there is political unrest. Also, in getting another 4,000 The Way to Happiness booklets distributed in Rwanda to help assuage the conflicts in this area.

- Creating The Way to Happiness "Set a good Example" float for the Hollywood Christmas Parade. The float promoted the ideals of honesty, trust and religious tolerance and was viewed by millions of people watching the parade from the street and on TV stations throughout the U.S.A.

- Promoting a contest involving the application of the precepts of The Way to Happiness, through major newspapers in Israel. 400,000 copies of this common sense guide to better living were distributed throughout Israel and Palestine. 536 entries to the contest were received and over 100 winners were chosen for their application of the precepts.

- Hosting the Palestinian General Secretary for Education and representatives from The Way to Happiness groups in Israel and Palestine visiting the United States to further plan and fundraise for the on-going distribution of The Way to Happiness in both Hebrew and Arabic in these war-tom areas.

ABLE International and its continental offices assisted Criminon International to accomplish the following:

- The Criminon program was presented to the Secretary General of the Ministry of Justice and the Director for Narcotics in Indonesia. As a result, Criminon delivered training on the implementation of the Criminon program to 22 national and regional staff from the Ministry of Justice. The courses the staff completed were on The Way to Happiness, Study Technology and communication. They were also trained as Supervisors so they could supervise the delivery of the Criminon courses in prisons — which they did with more than 100 inmates. One of the lead Supervisors then trained 12 inmates as Supervisors so they could supervise courses delivered to other inmates. These courses were implemented in 10 prisons throughout Indonesia.

ABLE International and its continental offices assisted Narconon International to accomplish the following in achieving its purposes through the implementation of L. Ron Hubbard's drug rehabilitation and education methodologies:

- In July 2003, the Director of the Philippines Drug Enforcement Agency and his deputy traveled to Australia and were briefed on the Narconon drug rehabilitation program. In Spring 2003, they visited the United States and as part of their trip, they spent two days at the International training center for Narconon, Narconon Arrowhead, located in Oklahoma. They then traveled to Los Angeles where they toured through the ABLE International displays and were further briefed. Planning for the implementation of the Narconon programs in the Philippines was worked out at that time. Narconon International then went to the Philippines and trained 30 police officers on the Narconon drug education program and also trained 24 drug rehabilitation professionals from government agencies and non-governmental organizations on the Narconon First Step program (consisting of drug-free withdrawal).

- To open 23 new drug rehabilitation and drug education groups around the world, including drug rehabilitation centers in San Diego, California, and in Idaho, as well as new centers in Greece, Philippines and Norway.

- Plan and implement outcome studies of the effectiveness of the Narconon drug rehabilitation program.

ABLE International delivered a three-day workshop on literacy and communication to English-speaking and Spanish-Speaking employees of the Head Start program in Los Angeles which provides services to pre-school-aged children and their parents. ABLE International also delivered a tutoring program in Kern County, California, to children of immigrants.

ABLE International also assisted the International Academy of Detoxification Specialists with establishment of their detoxification center in New York which has the purpose of detoxifying those emergency services employees adversely affected by the toxins from the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. By year-end, more than 150 firefighters and other rescue workers as well as downtown New York residents had completed the program.

Grants: 25,997,267.
Expenses: 27,707,341.

Description of program service two

Materials Compilations and Publications

An important part of ABLE International's mission includes the compilation, translation, publication and broad distribution of books and other materials containing the social betterment technologies developed by L. Ron Hubbard. These include materials for the general public to train on in order to improve some aspect of their lives, as well as the courses and course materials necessary to train staff of new and existing social betterment groups.

ABLE International assisted The Way to Happiness Foundation International in its publication of the following books, courses and materials:

- The Way to Happiness Course for Adults, The Way to Happiness Kid's Activity Book, The Way to Happiness Elementary School Lesson Plans and Middle School Lesson Plans — these materials were compiled and made ready for initial implementation.

- The Way to Happiness illustrated poster in Spanish.

- The Way to Happiness was translated into the following 32 languages and released during 2003: Spanish (Castillian), Portuguese, Armenian, Czech, Farsi, Malaysian, Japanese, Macedonian, Romanian, Slovak, Swedish, Taiwanese, Belorussian, Albanian, Croatian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Vietnamese, Latvian, Sinhalese, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Polish, Burmese, Indonesian, Slovenian, Serbian, Finnish, Bulgarian, Turkish and Ukranian.

ABLE International assisted Narconon International in its compilation of the following books, courses and materials:

- Narconon Drug Education materials and the Narconon Drug Education Public Relations materials for use in training drug education lecturers.

- Helping Someone Overcome Addiction book.

ABLE International assisted Applied Scholastics International in its compilation of the following books, courses and materials:

- Effective Learning Course, Key to Effective Learning lecture series and manuscripts, Effective Teacher Course and several other teacher training courses such as The Fundamentals of Instruction Course, Teaching Tools for Success Course, Study Tools for Educators Course and Communication Skills Course. Other compilations included Progressive Tutoring Tools, Learning How to Learn Correspondence Course for Tutors. These materials were released at the Grand Opening of Applied Scholastics International teacher training facility in St. Louis, Missouri.

Grants:      5,599.
Expenses:    294,268.

Description of program service three

Public Information on the Solution to Societal Ills

ABLE International conducts public awareness campaigns to focus on problem areas in society and to highlight the solutions to these problems provided by the affiliated programs that it supports and assists.

During 2003, ABLE International sent out over one million magazines, promotional fliers and newsletters to the general public and to leaders in the fields of education, drug rehabilitation, and moral improvement. Through its continental offices, ABLE sent out an additional five million promotional items, making known the solutions available to resolve these major societal ills.

Two editions of ABLE International's Solutions Magazine were printed and published in 2003, with each magazine distributed to many thousands of people. As well, ABLE International assisted Applied Scholastics in publishing a brochure on its education services in readiness for the Grand Opening of its international headquarters and teacher training facility; and similarly, assisted The Way to Happiness Foundation International in publishing a brochure for the Grand Opening of its international headquarters.

ABLE International has produced large visual displays illustrating the problems society faces in the 21St century — and the effectiveness of ABLE's programs through the application of L. Ron Hubbard's breakthrough technologies. Viewed by members of the general public, civic and community leaders, religious leaders and leaders of industry from around the world, the displays inform visitors about the results of ABLE's programs and how to implement these programs in their own areas.

One visitor to the ABLE displays led to the Nigerian Education Tax Fund (a fund established by the government of Nigeria to improve education in the country) sending a delegation to the United States to visit ABLE International and facilities utilizing each of the four ABLE social betterment programs. The delegation visited programs in Los Angeles and in St. Louis, Missouri, and saw the value of the programs in all levels of society from gangs, to drug addicts, to educating school children and how these programs could all be implemented to help the people of Nigeria. The Education Tax Fund then sent a delegation to South Africa to again visit Criminon and Applied Scholastics facilities and was impressed to see the rehabilitation technologies at work in a comparable environment to that in Nigeria. As a result of the above tours, the Education Tax Fund determined that they would, in conjunction with ABLE International, conduct a two-day "awareness conference" in February 2004, with educators, politicians, law enforcement, clergy and representatives of other related fields to promote all of ABLE's programs with the view to implementing the programs throughout Nigeria to specifically address the social problems associated with the "Area Boys" (gangs) of Nigeria.

In Venezuela, ABLE assisted in the presentation of all of the ABLE programs to the Governor's Assessors in the state of Merida, resulting in a request for the implementation of these programs to address the declining morals standards and increasing illiteracy in the country.

In November 2003, at a conference for the nations of Africa, ABLE's representative in Africa presented the Criminon criminal rehabilitation programs and the Education Alive literacy programs to Ministers and other government representatives from several Africa countries, providing information on the successful results from the implementation of these programs to address criminality and illiteracy as it affects all areas of society. The countries represented included: Mozambique, Angola, Zambia, Seychelles, Dakar, Malawi, Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, New England, Tanzania, Kenya, Republic of Congo, Egypt, Rwanda, Senegal and Lesotho. This resulted in many requests for materials and more information and follow-up on these ABLE programs.

Grants:    134,684.
Expenses:  1,124,647.