KIDS DARE TO SAY NO

Gloria Gillingham's Grade 5 class at Sidney school are daring to say no to
drugs and violence thanks to the RCMP's DARE program.

The students have been taking the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program
[DARE] taught by Sidney North Saanich RCMP Constable Ravi Gunasinghe for
the past 17 weeks.

The students used words like "cool" and "fun" to describe the course.

"We got to play a lot of games," said R.J. Laughren-Smith.

"We learned to walk away and say 'no'," said Reinhardt Starke.

"I've found it's such a good program," said Gillingham. "The kids get a
tremendous amount out of it - particularly the assertiveness - learning to
stand up and say 'no' is good for them."

The 13 students graduated from the DARE program just one day before Grade 5
students at Greenglade elementary school graduated from their class.
Gunasinghe has also started another class at North Saanich middle school
and Sidney elementary.

"My dream is to reach all the kids," Gunasinghe said.

The classes just starting the program will get a more condensed version,
just 10 weeks.

"They took out some outdated stuff and some things that just weren't
working with the kids," he said.

Two students won special awards at the graduation ceremony. Meg Poirier was
given the essay award for her essay on saying 'no' to drugs and Jordan
Lauriente was chosen for the role model award.

Each DARE program costs approximately $600 to cover the cost of materials
and a graduation party. "For these two [Sidney and Greenglade] Panago and
Thrifty's donated the food and drinks for the kids, which is huge, they are
very generous," Gunasinghe said.

The two programs were also funded by the school's Parent Advisory Councils
and a donation earlier this year by the Knights of Pythias.