Prevention and reduction of drug abuse

Budget: US$ 1 million

Duration: 6 years, starting September 1997

The project aims to introduce drug abuse prevention into primary education curricula and supplements the already existing drug abuse prevention programme in secondary education ( Prevención Integral del uso indebido de drogas). Training has already been provided to more than 7,360 school teachers and morethan 970 teachers of pedagogic faculties. High-quality training modules have been prepared and distributed, as well as awareness-generating posters and flyers. More than 802,050 pupils have benefited from this training. The project has also taken part in financing a study on drug abuse risk factors among school populations. Through the establishment of 70 Community Mobilization Plans, the project aims to involve parents and civil society in the fight against drug abuse.

An external evaluation carried out in 2000 acknowledged the important achievements of the project. These include the inclusion of drug prevention into the national school curricula; cost-effective training activities for teachers who in turn trained other colleagues; high motivation among the participants; and the production of high-quality educational materials. Moreover, it recommended that further work to complement the prevention programme of the Government and to broaden its scope be undertaken.  The project has been extended until March 2003.

To this end, a new project idea has been developed in the field of drug abuse prevention and reduction. The new three-year project will promote healthy lifestyles throughout the educational system and will become effective as soon as funds are available. The project will support the national drug abuse prevention programme of Peru’s Ministry of Education (Vida Saludable – OTUPI - PDF) and will include activities in school curricula to incorporate new topics, such as conflict prevention and reproductive health. At this stage of planning, the programme will reach some 1,900,000 students in more than three thousand educational centres. The project draws on the expertise of the regional teams of the Ministry of Education, who were trained under UNODC’s previous project.

UNODC is not alone in its effort to prevent and reduce drug abuse. Besides its own funded programmes, since 1995 UNODC has been supported many NGOs in drug abuse prevention activities in the most disadvantaged areas of Peru. The Japanese Drug Abuse Prevention Centre (JDAPC) has been a key partner in this effort. JDAPC runs nationwide fundraising campaigns in Japan, collecting money in the streets, from the private sector and from civil society, and has helped raise awareness among the Japanese youth of the dangers of drug abuse. JDAPC gives between $5000 and $20,000 to UNODC every year. This contribution is then used for grants to support non-governmental organizations in developing countries in their grass-roots activities related to drug abuse prevention. Thanks to these contributions, UNODC  has given more than 300 grants to NGOs in over 90 countries. Through the funds collected by JDAPC, UNODC has helped 10 different Peruvian organizations in their everyday mission against the drug problem. Until now, more than US$ 113,000 have been collected by JDAPC and used by UNODC for the prevention of drug abuse in Peru.