WITH so much talk about drugs and the problems surrounding them, one group of students is showing others what it is like to be drug free.

A delegation of PRIDE students had the chance to participate and perform at the International `Maximum Youth' PRIDE conference.

The 15 students from schools across the Island attended various workshops -- all with a drug free theme -- on improvisation, choreography, self-esteem, peer pressure, personal growth and other topics.

"It was fun to get to be with people from around the world who are all living drug free,'' said Winston York.

The parents and officials who accompanied the students were proud of their students not only for the way they conducted themselves, but for the performance the put on.

Nine of the attending students had put together a dance routine and were one of only six groups invited to preform at the conference.

Shoa Bean said: " I like the choreography workshop because it taught me new styles of dance we wouldn't learn here on the Island like swing and square dancing.'' Tanaya Christopher added that it was exciting to be able to say that they had gone away to perform and dance.

The highlight for Eric Bean was the workshop in which the speaker told the story of how the Make A Wish Foundation was started. By the time the story was finished there was not a dry eye in the room.

The purpose of the conference was to give the attending students the opportunity to interact with other young people from around the world that shared the similar serious drug problems in their countries.

There were 400 PRIDE teams at the conference making up over 8,000 students in attendance.

Bermuda's PRIDE delegation even came home with an award. They placed second in the PRIDE challenge.

With the information they brought back the delegates are hard at work preparing for their own conference in November.

They will try out some of the techniques and workshop ideas they learned at the international conference and add a few of their own. Next year the International PRIDE Conference will be held in Nashville, Tennessee and Bermuda hopes to be in attendance.

THE PRIDE OF THEIR SCHOOLS