What do today’s youth have to say about drugs?

 

By Laura Bohnert

The local Whitecourt detachment of the RCMP is about to find out exactly how students feel about meth, fentanyl, and date rape.

Whitecourt students in grades nine through 12 will have a chance to present their views on issues like drugs and date rape in the Town of Whitecourt’s video contest.  Individuals or groups will be able to submit five-minute videos expressing their opinions for a chance to win one of three prizes.

“We applied for funding for the drug awareness and prevention project through the provincial government, and we were awarded the money,” explains Tina Prodaniuk, Crime Prevention Coordinator for the Whitecourt Detachment of the RCMP.  “We are using it to create a three-phase project that will inform Whitecourt about drugs in the community.  We had a stakeholders’ meeting early on where we discussed fentanyl and where it is available within the community.  We had EMS and Alberta Health Services (AHS) onsite, along with a variety of people who were interested in what was going on.”

“Phase two involves getting real video topics,” Prodaniuk explains.  “We’ve left eligibility pretty open.  We advertised the project in schools, but anyone can participate.  It’s free to submit a video, and they can be done solo or as a team.”

First prize winners will receive $750, second prize winners will receive $500, and third prize will be worth $250.

The deadline for video submissions is October 31.

“We want peer on peer presentations from students between grades 9 and 12 telling us what they think,” says Prodaniuk.  “They will have to do research and produce a small video.  The local RCMP will vote for the best videos, and then we will bus everyone downtown to the Vista Theatre to view the productions.  After that, the students will have a Q and A with the police, then watch a movie.”

“Phase three will involve grades 7 and 8 students,” Prodaniuk adds.  More details will be released in the future.

“We are trying to target all age groups with information about drug awareness across the board,” Prodaniuk says.  “Not just youth; parents too.”

“The project is about drug awareness, so we are focusing on prevention,” explains Prodaniuk.  “We are working to prevent youth from going down the wrong path.  It isn’t the youth who are currently being harmed by drug use, but we want to make sure they are making the right choices.”

“We chose to focus on youth because we want to see what their perspective may be,” Prodaniuk adds.  “As adults, we create programs, but we need to know what youth are thinking about so we can react to their concerns, and we need to see what they know so we can make sure there are no gaps.”

For more information about the drug awareness and prevention project, or for information about the Town of Whitecourt’s video contest, individuals can reach Tina Prodaniuk by phoning the Whitecourt RCMP detachment.