Children living in Honduras experience poverty, conflict, inadequate role models, and a deficient education. Their chances of resisting the attraction of alcohol or the enticements of drugs are slim.
The purpose of CEREPA’S Drug Prevention Program is to work with children and teenagers during these vulnerable years, and to reach out to children and teens already involved with drugs or alcohol. The mission of CEREPA’S program is to develop and implement a permanent process of prevention for drug and alcohol addiction in children and teenagers in elementary schools and high schools in the greater Catacamas community.
The Drug Prevention Program, also called the Youth Esteem Program, has grown during the last six years from serving two elementary schools to serving ten. The program has also added the three community’s largest high schools. The new schools have been chosen for their easy access in outlying areas of Catacamas, and because the school staffs agreed to be actively involved in the program during the school year.
“My Life Plan,” a series of motivational workshops, is used with sixth graders and middle school students and has benefited 4,817 students in the last two years. The program includes teaching, sharing testimonies, movies, dramas, role playing, self-tests, questionnaires, bulletin boards, handcrafts, sports and community-related activities.
The program for drug prevention at the high school level includes two different aspects: training of student leaders to become leaders in prevention activities in their student bodies, and testimonies from current CEREPA in-patients, who share with students the consequences of addiction.