Welcome to P.E.D.A. - Peer Education on Drugs and Alcohol

The main objective of P.E.D.A. is to prevent underage substance abuse and thus future criminal activity and/or early death.

Presently, young people begin abusing substances at a very early age. DWI, suicide, domestic violence, rape, and burglary are all related to such abuse.

P.E.D.A's website will educate teens to further understand that sometimes external factors like bad influences and environment are too much to overcome and can often lead to substance abuse.

P.E.D.A.'s program was created in 2005 and its main objective was to engage young people in substance abuse prevention by incorporating all art forms in their lives, which greatly contribute to the development of cultural and leisure activities, thus promoting health and well-being of youth and adults alike.
Inactivity and solitude breed boredom, and boredom breeds drug use.

P.E.D.A.'s objective is to prevent substance abuse among young people by strengthening factors that protect them from the problem, such as improving self-esteem, by fostering creative skills.

Margaret Oster, president and youth program coordinator of Impact DWI, a 501c (3) organization, strongly believe that art facilitates freedom of expression, identity and creativity as a tool to prevent drug use.

Middle-school students transitioning to high school believe that everyone uses alcohol and drugs and that in order to "to fit in", and they might have to give in to that kind of pressure.

We really want to target those transitioning students by engaging them into challenging activities and by rewarding them for their accomplishments.

We have created the "Do Art, Not Drugs" Program with a firm belief that Art, Photography and Film not only engage young people in social issues, but safeguard them against the pressure of substance abuse.

Both the art visual and film are a good way to get engaged and send messages, therefore we urge all teens who are artistic types to show off some of their creative work in our first annual art, photography and film competition.

By entering this competition, teens are eligible to win fabulous prizes and a lot of cyber exposure in the creative world.
Who knows? Somebody out there might be searching for some fresh visuals!