The 2007 Drug Abuse Resistance Education programme – DARE – has kicked off in all primary schools across the Cayman Islands and it’s hoped hundreds of children will benefit from the course throughout the year.
PC Stewart with the Little Cayman class and their teacher, Mrs. Veronica Khan. Photo: Submitted |
Neighbourhood Policing Officer, PC Rob Stewart is delivering his first course on Cayman Brac after qualifying as an instructor at the National Air Guard Base in Minnesota last year.
‘I have been assisting with DARE for a while and have now begun teaching the course to a class of 16 children at Spot Bay School,’ he said in a press release. ‘I really enjoy teaching the course and take great pride in knowing I am helping young people learn about the dangers of drugs and alcohol.’
PC Stewart has also submitted details of his newly formed Little Cayman class to the DARE headquarters in the US to be recognised as the smallest class ever to be taught.
‘We have two pupils in the class on Little Cayman and I am pretty sure there has never been a class so small!’
The DARE programme is a 10-week anti-drugs and violence presentation carried out by qualified police officers in all primary schools in the Cayman Islands. Its aim is to teach children, aged 10 and 11, about the dangers of drugs, alcohol, tobacco and violence and to provide participants with the skills needed to avoid and deal with situations involving any of these.
The DARE curriculum is specially designed to be taught by police officers whose training and experience gives them the background needed to answer the often sophisticated questions posed by young students about drugs and crime, the release said.
DARE is universally viewed as an internationally recognized model of community policing.
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