Missouri National Guard shares drug prevention message with Panamanian counterparts

By: Bill Phelan
Unit Public Affairs Representative





ST. LOUIS, Mo. - Thousands of children in Panama may benefit from drug and alcohol awareness programs taught by the Missouri National Guard after a visit by Panamanian officials to St. Louis.

Members of the Panamanian National Police and the Frontier Force, that country's border security agency, were in St. Louis March 22-26 sharing drug prevention ideas with the Guard's Counterdrug Task Force.

The visit was organized by Capt. Juan Carlos Valencia, a Guard officer assigned to the Office of Defense Cooperation at the U.S. Embassy in Panama. Valencia and Staff Sgt. Herastico Pitty-Diaz also served as interpreters during the visit.

A primary goal of the event was to expose the Panamanians to the Guard's in-school program on drug, alcohol and tobacco awareness, which focuses on helping school-aged children to make healthy life decisions. Program coordinators provide information on the dangers of smoking and abusing drugs and alcohol, and offer the students insight on how such products are marketed through the media. The program also features a series of fun, team-building exercises designed to promote trust.

"This is an information sharing event," said Staff Sgt. Ron Johnson, a task force instructor. "We're trying to see what challenges they are facing in Panama and to see of those challenges are similar to what we face here in the United States."

One of those challenges, said Johnson, is that Panamanian children are becoming more involved in the manufacture and selling of illegal drugs.

"So we're hoping to build a coalition anti-drug effort in Panama similar to what we have here - a community-based prevention program that targets kids at an early age," Johnson said.

"Prevention is the key in both Panama and the United States," added Master Sgt. Curtis Hanock, a task force coordinator. "We want the Panamanians to see first-hand the drug prevention efforts that we administer in Missouri. "

With that in mind, the six-member Panamanian delegation participated in drug, alcohol and tobacco awareness presentations at Imagine Elementary School and St. Joan of Arc School in St. Louis and Delmar Harvard Elementary in University City. The group was also briefed on U.S. drug prevention efforts at the Thomas Eagleton Federal Courthouse.

Capt. Jorge Bosquez, a Frontier Force officer, pointed out that Panamanian officials are often faced with a rural, indigenous population wary of any government official.

Still, Panama has made great strides in its own drug and alcohol prevention programs.

After adopting the Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education (DARE) program, Panama trained six DARE instructors in 2002 and offered the program to 1,600 students in six schools. The country now boasts 38 trained instructors and more than 78,000 DARE program student graduates from 83 schools in all nine provinces.

Many Panamanian schools also have resource officers similar to those in U.S. schools and authorities are reaching out to churches in an effort to build a community-based drug and crime prevention program, which also helps ease suspicion of the government.

"That is very important," said Maj. Ayda C. Villareal De Jaen, of the Panamanian National Police, who leads Panama's drug prevention efforts. "The programs we offer in Panama are similar to those in the United States so we want to integrate those programs and offer them in Panama. We want to reach more schools with this program and teach kids at an early age so they don't become adult offenders."

Bosquez cites Panama's rugged terrain, limited financial resources and lack of manpower as obstacles his country must still hurdle in the fight against the use and manufacture of illegal drugs, but he remains optimistic.

"I've learned some very good, positive things here that I will bring back to Panama," he said. "A lot of Panamanians are going to benefit from this - members of the native, indigenous population, who the Americans have very little experience with. A lot of what I learned here will be a good, creative way to break into that culture."

Christi Sorrell, a teacher of gifted and talented students at Delmar Harvard Elementary, believes the Panamanian's admiration for the Guard program is well-founded.

"The program is perfect for my students," she said. "It teaches creative problem solving and teamwork and gives them a plan for life."



Posted: 4/9/2010 1:39:59 PM