WPM: Substance abuse program targets youth at Wind River

REINETTTE TENDORE: We have (zip) Right here we have a bottle of rat poison, and, uh, we have insecticide.

REBECCA MARTINEZ: Reinette Tendore is rifling through a bag of props she uses to teach elementary and middle school kids about the contents of commercial cigarettes and what they can do to your lungs. She pulls out some squishy lung replicas. She starts out with the smooth, pink healthy one… but she says kids always react to the lumpy, blackened, cancerous lung.

TENDORE: Their first thing is, “Ew, yuck!” Or, a lot of kids say, “that’s my mom’s lung!” Or “that’s my dad’s lung!”

MARTINEZ: Tendore works with for the Shoshone and Arapaho Tobacco Prevention Program, just one prevention group that’s partnering with a new inter-tribal program called Eastern Shoshone Cross Age Peer Education – or ESCAPE. Using federal grant funding, the Eastern Shoshone Department of Juvenile Services is developing ESCAPE to be a peer-mentorship program. Students will be trained to lead presentations about certain health and social issues, and then they’ll mentor younger kids.