STUDENTS GET A TASTE OF HARD LIFE

Youth Take A Tour Of Vancouver's East Side As Lesson On Drugs

A tour earlier this month of Vancouver's drug-riddled downtown east
side was a real eye-opener for two Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district students.

Jessica Biekx and Kortney Ashcroft, secondary students from the
district's Junior Learning Alternatives Program, joined others from
districts across the province in Vancouver on April 4 to participate
in the first annual "On Track Youth Ambassador Workshop" dedicated to
showing youngsters a first-hand and close-up look at the perils of drug use.

Biekx and Ashcroft are now preparing a slide-show presentation on
what they learned at the workshop, hosted by Odd Squad Production, a
non-profit society created in 1998 by seven Vancouver City Police
officers, to address some of the major social problems affecting
communities, to present at secondary schools throughout the district.

"We want to show other kids what can happen when you get involved in
drugs," Biekx said Thursday from her south-end school called the
Junior Alternative Program, formerly known as Five Acres Alternative School.

"I think Kortney and myself were chosen by the district to attend the
workshop because most students in the regular system wouldn't grasp
the realities around drug use and addictions as easily as students in
the alternative programs because many of us had more exposure to these issues."

Nanaimo RCMP Const. Trevor Shields said having peers prepare
presentations of this nature for other students is a new concept, but
one he feels might have more of an impact than if presented by adults.

"Obviously, many of these students have been exposed to things that
most students in the system are sheltered from," Shields said. "It's
a reality for many of them that's not far from home."

Biekx said it's important to get the message about the dangers of
drug use to fellow students as early as possible.

"It we don't get the message to students before they start
experimenting with drugs, the problem is much harder to deal with if
they become addicts," she said.