Mobilizing Parents for Prevention
Jesús Cabrera Solís
Director
Centers for Youth Integration (CIJ)
Mexico
Today, we have two outstanding people from
our two countries whose contributions will
undoubtedly be of great interest to everyone
here today. The first to take the floor shall be
Mr. Bautista, who is President of the National
Parents Association in my country. He has a BA
in business management and specializes in
business direction. Prior to being President of
the National Parents Association, he was
President of his State Association for the
parents. I briefly would like to tell you how
important this parents’ association is by first of
all pointing out that in our country we have 19
million parents with children in school. There are
a total of 194,500 committees of parents
throughout the country, one per school. There
also are 32 state parents associations, one per
state. And grouped in this national association
are parents whose children are in different types
of schools, such as the special education
children, preschool children, grade school,
middle school and secondary school children.
This association groups together all of the
parents with children in private and public
schools.
L.A. Jose Luis Perez Bautista
President
National Association of Parents
Mexico
Mobilizing parents is a very important goal. We
should strive in workshops, training sessions,
exhibits, conferences, preventative meetings,
and at sports events to talk with parents with
the common objective of preventing drug use
and addiction. Parent associations have been
important sources for sharing information in
schools as well as in the home. Parents can
attend the school where their children study,
and schools can offer workshops that deal with
a great many subjects that benefit the
relationships between the home and the school.
It is in the schools where subjects of prevention
and drug use are delved into and information
can be brought to all parents. If we consider
that the school, the community and the parents
as well as participating institutions are all
working towards a common end, then we will
agree that our joint work toward these
objectives will produce better and greater
results than the isolated efforts of only one of
the parties. Many experiences have shown this.
Experiences that link the school with the
community are vital and can be achieved by
devoting an hour per month or every fortnight
to holding meetings with parents and children
and youths. Subjects can be approached in a
basic and simple way, for example, entering into
agreements to talk with their family members
about specific topics of importance to the work
of prevention.
It is important to consider that today education
is not to be given in an isolated way. Rather, it
often involves a comprehensive effort by many
institutions working together. These institutions
can form a comprehensive development system
where the family, the National Education
Institute for Adults, the Social Security Institute,
state workers, Social Services, the Department
of Health, Youth Integration Centers, General
Attorney's Office, and representatives from
Mexico City and the country participate together
constantly in the area of education. Such
collaboration allows these agencies and
institutions to focus their specialized knowledge
of prevention and their experienced prevention
staff to work with teachers in their schools in
order to provide broad knowledge about
preventing youth substance use. Also, school
curricula contain information regarding
delinquency prevention, lack of safety,
preventing drug use and addiction, smoking,
and alcoholism. It is important to remember that
many times these subjects are also important to
discuss with parents.
The right to protect the health of children, of
young people and of all Mexican citizens is set
forth in our Constitution and its provisions. To
fully comply with this, all institutions and parents
need to work together. Institutions must offer
those services required for the well-being of the
population. And parents in the community at
large should accept the commitment individually
and collectively, of developing and implementing
a prevention culture, self-care, and safety. We
know that health, safety and education are a
shared responsibility. Parents who have
organized in our country ratify our commitment
to continue contributing in these areas. The
government of our country must continue
forward with firm public health policies, policies
of safety and education that are congruent with
the needs of most Mexicans. Organized parents
in the country and our organization, through
me, have firmly requested that the health and
education sectors, as well as those institutions
and agencies in charge of law and safety
enforcement, establish closer coordination links
to reinforce the training and education of our
youth in order to prevent violence and
delinquency. To this end, undoubtedly, the joint
responsibility of everyone is required. In the
area of health and prevention, we and our
children require constant orientation campaigns
that will allow our community to reduce the risks
and diseases as well as addictions and violence
that they produce.
It is timely to repeat that the National Parents'
Association finds it necessary to reinforce
guidance programs and information programs in
the areas of drug use, violence and crime, both
for our parents as well as for our children. We
need to strengthen the mechanisms that will
allow for us to more rigorously inform our
children and our youth throughout the school
system, so that we can truly, more efficiently
prevent and alert them regarding the brutal risk
that drugs represent for their own health and
the eventual health of their families. That is why
we must speak to our children objectively and
truthfully with the greatest respect that all
families and sectors of the population deserve,
but also clearly enough so that all of our
programs and campaigns will have the impact
we want. We know of no father wishing evil for
his or her children. We know of no teacher that
wishes to shape a poor citizen, but I also know
of no other way of guiding parents and families
if it is not through the help of everyone that
takes part in the educational process and in our
institutions.
The government, headed by President Zedillo
and his distinguished wife as well as the parents
of our country have joined efforts. We must
acknowledge that we have a good stretch to
cover, but only through the will and organized
work of institutions and the community, can we
forge ahead. Parents will make this effort in
favor of our children, for our schools where they
go to receive knowledge, and for Mexico. Thank
you very much.
Henry Lozano
President
Californians for Drug Free Youth
United States
It’s an honor to be here today. It’s an honor to
address you. As my esteemed colleagues have
already mentioned, the basic principle of our
discussion this afternoon is to think about the
implications of the family. How many of you
know that across this country, and across other
countries, when you mention things like
prevention, and then connect the logical
connector, in my mind—the family, that
somehow there’s a bridge that still has to be
built to understand the importance, the value
and the implication of families and parents
coming together in communities to address the
issue of substance abuse and illicit drug
prevention?
How many of you know that there’s still a bridge
out there that has to be crossed? There’s still a
vast lack of understanding about the value of
community. I’m proud to be part of a number
of institutions and agencies across this country
that have forged bridges into communities, that
have forged alliances with different agencies,
and have gone the extra mile in their efforts to
consider how they might approach bringing
together agencies, communities, resources, and
most importantly, family. Parents. La familia.
The center. The core of every institution within
every city. You know how we always draw the
case that we have to move to the cities. We’ve
got to move to the communities. We’ve got to
impact the legislatures. We’ve got to impact the
local civil governments and the institutions that
reside out there. But more at heart, we have to
impact the family.
I compliment the previous speaker in his points
about understanding specifically that there isn’t
a family anywhere, not one family, that would
look upon their children without heart and not
want the best for their child, the best in that
child’s development, education, welfare, growth,
environment, status, and achieving. The one
thing I do know, that this morning, as this
conference was started, we had a wonderful
communicator. A speaker before the dignitaries,
a dignitary in her own right. A young lady who
advanced the charge, a charge about her
nation, a charge about her people and a charge
about the declaration of the value of young
people in their incorporated necessity in what
we call prevention and family dynamics. I would
say to you that the reason we continue to call
parents and family the hardest domain to reach
is because we haven’t understood what they’re
listening for. We continue to frighten our
families. The moment we use the word drugs,
we have families across this nation and across
Mexico that instantly are perplexed by the
dilemma of what it would mean to associate
with a drug prevention organization. Would
somebody actually think that my family was
involved in that kind of a lifestyle? If I went to
help and support, would somebody perceive that
what I was there for was help? Across this
nation and across Mexico, we have a common
thread, a common theme to involve and
incorporate people. One of the campaigns that
I’ve been honored to be involved with was this
campaign that was under SAMHSA’s direction
and The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention
(CSAP). Our administrator, Dr. Nelba Chavez,
founded this program, moved it across this
country with the Association of Collaborative
Agencies, and important individuals in this room
who advanced it. The project had a primary
focus. The focus was to deliver to parents, both
English and Spanish, a tool-kit, a digest of
suggestions and possibilities of programs
dialogue forums to encourage communities to
start talking at the family level. And the question
has always been: what can this do?
Let me give you a quick brief of what this can
do. I stand here a proud and honored son of
two incredible people—two individuals who
gave me my life, who gave me an
understanding of what it is to work everyday.
My father’s side came from Chihuahua, Mexico.
My mother’s side are Apache from southwestern
New Mexico. These two people gave me what I
understand today to be an honorable son. They
gave me the facility to understand what it is to
be a son of integrity, a son who responded to
his father’s name, a son who respected his
mother. Now you smile at that because in this
gathering, that understanding is imperative. I
had a father who worked seven days a week
and a mother who carried a broom seven days a
week, not to sweep the floor but to crack it on
our backs if we didn’t respond the way we
should have while Daddy wasn’t there. I
understood at an early age. From the early days
of my upbringing the one thing inside of me, the
one thing that held me true to course, the one
thing that advanced me forward, was the
understanding that my mother and father cared
about who I was as a child, that my father
understood the value of complimenting me as a
son, that my mother understood the value of
always being my public relations expert.
Every time mother got up and introduced me,
she would tell everybody 50% of a non-truth by
telling them how wonderful I was. And she
would tell 50% of the truth. All of those things
that I did do. But my mother continued to
advance the prospect that her firstborn son was
a man of honor and integrity like her husband
was.
Why did my mother do that? Why did my
mother continue to advance a son in such a
spectacular way? And then subsequently, my
brothers and sisters? Because my mother
understood that the man she married, Enrique
Lozano, was a man of integrity, a man of honor,
a man of value. And to inspire that in me, she
had to continue to reinforce in the community’s
public eye, that I was also a man of integrity.
And what did that mean in our family? What did
that say about us? What impression did that
give about us locally? It gave other people the
impression that this firstborn was a man who
was going to carry out his father’s ways.
I want to tell you that that was the most
important lesson my family could have ever
given me. All of the curriculum, of the
institutions, of the programs that were
assembled could never have taught me what my
mother and father gave me in my principles of
life. And I’m proud of that. I’m proud of where
my dad, proud of where my mother’s people
come from. On this side of the border I’m proud
of who I am. And to understand that pride in me
is what I gave to my children. It’s what I hope
to give when I’m a grandfather. I hope to see
that respect come back to me. I’m going to tell
you why. I’m going to tell you that we must
come to that conclusion as a country.
I’m proud to be of another campaign—The
National Media Campaign. The Anti-Drug
Campaign that is moving across this country to
bring a baseline value of understanding and
clarity to this nation on how it goes about
investing in its children. In my mind it’s the most
important campaign of value that could happen
in the United States. I’m proud of the
leadership, the director, General Barry
McCaffrey, and the Office of National Drug
Control Policy, and the strategy that’s been
implemented to move a campaign across this
nation, to send this country a message: that our
young people are not tomorrow’s future. Please
hear this. That our young people are not
tomorrow’s hope. That our young people are not
tomorrow’s future. They are today’s future. Our
young people happen to be the pride of today.
My mother never said to anybody in public,
when this young man finally grows up, then he’ll
have some value. When this young man finally
gets his degree and five years experience, then
he’ll be worth something. When this man finally
gets to be, well, as tall as my father, when this
young man can fill my father’s shoes, or my
husband’s shoes, as my mother would say, and
walk in them in a manly way, then he will be of
value. My mother understood intrinsically that
the value was placed within me coming from
her, from her very words, from her heart. My
familia, my family, is a family that’s intact today.
A family of brothers and sisters that wait for our
annual reunions, that have a better time when
we’re together than when we’re not. And it’s all
because of two people who championed that the
common thread, the common voice in both our
countries. We have to speak with confidence,
with integrity and dignity to our young people.
But not about what they’re doing wrong, but
about what they’re doing right.
We have to move and advance throughout both
of our countries. The honor and respect of the
family as it is today. The common theme that
both of our countries understand is that we have
something of value, imperative value, that exists
today. It’s our young people, working alongside
us. Now. Not tomorrow. Not after they go to
school. Today. It’s moving our young people in
such a primary form that that young woman
who spoke this morning would be the champion
of every other young voice in both of our
countries, if they would speak with the
dedication and honor, knowing that someday
their mother and father are going to hear those
same words, those same suggestions, that any
mother or father that would sit right there and
listen to their son.
If it wouldn’t have been that today was the day
and my mother and father were otherwise
engaged, my hope was to have my father and
my mother sitting right there right now. My
hope would have been that with these eyes, I
could have looked at my father and I could have
looked at my mother at this luncheon and I
could have said “Salute” to them. I could have
been with honor to understand that my people
gave me a destiny. A proud destiny.
Toolkits. I’m proud of this one. Probably
because I sit on the steering committee and
because I get to work with a wonderful group of
people. I want you to know that this is a
wonderful product that would work in Mexico as
well as the United States. And I know the
administrator and the local dignitaries here from
SAMHSA would love to move this to both
countries. I would love to be invited to advance
this product because it’s a product that has an
ethic to it. That has a moral support to it.
Another opportunity I’d like to share with you is
that within this nation, there’s a network of
people who are working together to advance the
issues of alcohol and substance abuse across
our people’s venues. And there’s a conference
that’s going to happen. I’m sounding like a
hawker now. It’s for the millennium. It’s going
to happen October 18-20 in Albuquerque, New
Mexico. That conference will bring together the
finest in research, the finest in researchers, and
leadership across this nation to look at our
issues and to consequently forge together the
bridge to the communities, the bridge to the
leadership within communities. I would invite
those of you from Mexico who sit here today to
know that we invite you to that conference. We
would like to forge that bridge with the
wonderful work that’s going on. We have begun
a bridge to connect to our families. The day is
today. Today is the day to continue to advance.
I would also like to thank our Department of
Education. I would like to thank Mr. William
Modzeleski who is here today, because of the
schools and the imperative projects that have
gone on with our Safe and Drug Free Schools
and Communities Act, the projects that have
ventured across this nation to reach young
people. The caretakers who usually become the
formal providers for our young people happen to
be those educators across this country who act
as surrogate parents in incredible ways. The
tools that are needed are there. The instruments
that are needed are there. The collaboration
mechanisms for these two countries coming
together are there. I am proud that there are
young people here today. Without these young
people, without the people right there with us,
our wholeness, our young people, young men
and young women who are the leadership here,
without them, we the fathers and mothers do
not have a future.
My closing comment: When I’m a grandfather, it
will be in my honor and dignity to have
grandchildren who want to come and see me.
Just like I want to see my mother and father. It
will be an honor for those little kids to sit in my
lap. To sit and look up at grandpa and to say I
love you. It will be an honor for this grandfather
to tell his grandchildren that, just as my father
and mother gave me that gift, I love you back.
Do you know what? I will never understand that
privilege unless I create the respect and the
tradition of that love and honor within my own
children’s lives. Because they will be the ones
that will convey that thought to my
grandchildren. They will be the ones that tell my
grandchildren in their homes that Grandpa’s a
good man. Grandma’s a good woman. We need
to go see Grandma and Grandpa.
What does this have to do with prevention?
Prevention in its heart and soul, is the fabric of
this nation’s mind and the nation’s mind in
Mexico. It was us remembering that the prize
and the goal that we always had, was to raise
children of honor, dignity and purpose.
