Members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrived at Maaqtusiis School May 30 to celebrate with 12 Grade 5 students who successfully completed the DARE Program.
Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) is a program that was founded in Los Angeles in 1983. Aimed at school-aged children, its purpose is to teach children about the dangers of drugs, alcohol and gang violence. They also learn about resisting peer pressure.
After all the lessons are done, the children write essays about what they’ve learned and they sign a pledge not to use drugs or alcohol and not to join gangs.
Members of RCMP Ahousaht detachment hosted a barbecue lunch in celebration of the DARE grad. They invited the entire community to come to the RCMP building to share hamburgers, hot dogs, fries and cupcakes.
From there, everyone walked up the road to the multi-purpose room at the new high school.
Each of the graduating class were given DARE t-shirts before taking seats in front of their proud parents and community members.
Constable Matt Hartwig arrived at the celebration dressed in his red serge, something the RCMP does for special occasions.
“This is about building life skills, resistance skills and awareness,” said Hartwig, who came from Tofino to Ahousaht to teach 10 one-hour DARE lessons. He was proud of the students saying their essays were very well-written and all were returned to him in record time.
RCMP Sgt. Jim Anderson, in charge of Tofino and Ahousaht, said he was proud of the community, proud of the school and proud of the DARE graduates.
Corporal Dave Cusson is a specially trained RCMP officer from the Tofino detachment. He is qualified to deliver DARE classes to school-aged children. He said DARE is an international program and is part of a national strategy to allow law enforcement to connect with the youth and to work together on prevention.
“I encourage you to take your certificates home and frame it; put it somewhere where you can see it every day so you can always remember what you learned,” he told the graduates.
Cusson thanked the parents for being there to support their children.
“It’s important because we all know (teaching prevention) starts at home,” he said.
Ahousaht Chief Councillor Curtis Dick also congratulated the children, saying he was proud of them. He thanked the RCMP for bringing the DARE program to the community. To the children, he said, “You now have the ability to teach your parents, brothers and sisters; you have a lot of good knowledge that you need to share and pass on.”
Four of the students were selected to read their essays aloud; each essay focused on one subject matter they studied during their DARE classes over the past few weeks.
Sierra Frank wrote about the bad things that can happen to your body if you smoke cigarettes. From yellow teeth to life-threatening diseases, she warned about the dangers of smoking before making a personal pledge never to smoke or do drugs.
Qwammi Robinson wrote an essay about the dangers of marijuana while Hanna George wrote about alcohol abuse and Germaine Bulwer wrote about not caving into peer pressure.
Following the readings each graduate was called up to receive their certificates.
Graduates are: Giselle Titian, Juniper John, Mariela Hernandez, Hannah George, Mark Frank-Perry, Sierra Frank Qwammi Robinson, Matthew Frank, Emma Dick, Jaa’deen Charlie, Germaine Bulwer and Shania Thomas.
