Life skills help keep youngsters off drugs

Life skills help keep youngsters off drugs

Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

About 70 teachers were standing on their chairs in the auditorium
of Atma Jaya University in South Jakarta on Tuesday.

Without saying a word they encouraged the other teachers in
the auditorium to get up on their chairs. Most of them did so,
leaving only five teachers with their feet firmly planted on the
ground.

"You see how easy it is to influence others, and how easy it
is for people to succumb to peer pressure," said Tri Iswardani, a
psychologist from the University of Indonesia.

Peer pressure has been identified as one of the major causes
of substance abuse among young people, and given that sharing
needles accounts for a large percentage of HIV/AIDS cases in the
country the danger is even clearer.

According to the Jakarta AIDS Prevention Committee (KPAD),
there are approximately 65,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in
Jakarta. The committee says there are also about 27,000 injecting
drug users (IDUs) in the capital, 80 percent of whom are thought
to be HIV positive.

In response to this threat, Atma Jaya University, in
cooperation with the Indonesian Humanitarian Committee (KKI) and
the Coca-Cola Foundation, organized a one-day training seminar
for educators to help them create programs to prevent the spread
of substance abuse in schools.

Some 150 educators from junior high schools, high schools and
universities from across Jakarta were introduced to Life Skill
Education (LSE), a module developed by the KKI and currently
being implemented by Atma Jaya University.

A poll by Atma Jaya University of 1,446 students from its
class of 2004 found that 88 percent of the students had never
used drugs and 4.1 percent had used drugs in the past. It also
found that 2.3 percent of respondents were still using drugs,
while 5.6 percent did not respond to the question.

Those students who had used drugs in the past said they
started in junior high school (36 percent), high school (33
percent), university (16 percent) and even elementary school (7
percent). The remaining 8 percent did not respond.

Nineteen percent of the students still taking drugs said they
started using in junior high school, 16 percent at university
and 13 percent in high school.

"Some of these students were introduced to drugs in the fourth
grade of elementary school by uncles or someone close to them,"
said a researcher at Atma Jaya University, Murniati Agustian,
adding that other students were introduced to drugs at university
by their boyfriends or girlfriends.

"We believe it is important to save as many children as
possible, and for this we must provide them with the life skills
they need to be able to say no to drugs," said Tri Iswardani.

She said that in creating antidrug programs for schools, it
was important to identify the target audience, taking into
account their ages and cultural backgrounds.

"And one cannot generalize. The treatment for substance abuse
that results from social pressure is different from treatment for
psychological cases," she said, adding that it was also important
to involve the whole family for treatment to work.

Clara, the principal of Abdi Siswa high school in Tanjung
Duren, West Jakarta, said that although there had never been any
cases of drug abuse at her school, she was interested in
implementing the LSE program to prevent drugs from becoming a
problem at the school.

"Next semester we plan to invite parents to get involved in
educating students about the dangers of substance abuse and in
building their life skills," she said.