Even though the U.S. teen pregnancy rate has dropped in the past decade, more than 2,700 teenage girls still get pregnant every day, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization specializing in reproductive health research.

The PEERS Project hopes to further reduce those numbers. Locally founded in 1994, the project, which stands for Peers Educating and Encouraging Responsible Sexuality, uses high school students to teach middle school students about the consequences of premarital sex and drug and alcohol use.

Eve Jackson was a high school teacher when she conceived the idea of an abstinence program, after seeing the effects of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases on her students. With support from St. Vincent Hospital, she created "A Promise to Keep," a faith-based abstinence program, which provided instructional material and guidance to Christian schools and institutions. PEERS is the secular version of "Promise."

Since then, 9,000 high school students have become PEERS mentors, promising to abstain from drugs, sex and alcohol and to teach younger teens to do the same. They have been paired with nearly 100,000 adolescents in 32 Indiana counties.

Mentors are first recommended by their teachers and guidance counselors. They are then trained to present a 12-part program to middle-schoolers, who receive the instruction in their health or home economics classrooms. While the project focuses on the benefits of abstinence, it also touches on assertiveness training, media influences and healthy relationships.

The program and St. Vincent Hospital were recently awarded a $2.3 million U.S. Department of Health and Human Services grant over three years to expand their efforts.

Lawrence Township is one school district that takes part in the PEERS Project. Recently, Y-Press interviewed several mentors from Lawrence North High School about their involvement.

Gabbi Rodr{iacute}guez, Jamie Enright, Emanuel Harper IV, Adrienne Cobb, Terence Smith and Kathleen Madison work to be positive influences on their peers and take time out of class to go around to the middle schools to spread a message they believe in.

Their involvement

Emanuel: When I was in seventh grade, PEERS Project came to my school. It really made an impact on some people that I knew and (on) myself, and that's why I joined it.

Adrienne: I thought it would be something interesting to do because it always makes a bigger difference when you're talking to your peers rather than when you have an adult talking to children. They absorb it more, so that's how I got involved.

Kathleen: I really wanted to join because I was in Willing to Wait, which basically is the same thing in middle school.

The promise

Adrienne: There is an application at the beginning of the whole process where they ask you questions like why you would want to be in the program and whether or not you do actually abstain from sex. I always had friends that had similar belief systems as I, as far as doing well in school, having two-parent households, things of that nature. And so it just made it easier to abstain from the sex and the drugs and the alcohol when you have that positive influence around you.

Terence: They trust us to be honest when we fill out our application about being abstinent and drug-free. They entrust us to hold each other accountable.

Kathleen: I think that when you save yourself for marriage, your virginity is a gift you can give to your spouse.

Teaching the message

Gabbi: I am comfortable talking about this because my parents have been talking to me about this ever since I can remember, and it's always been something that's been openly discussed in my house.

Adrienne: We're given a script of what it is we're basically supposed to convey to the students. Of course, we don't have to repeat these things verbatim, but for the most part the general idea that you get from the script is the thing that you're trying to tell the kids.

Jamie: We give them examples of situations they could be in, which helps educate them about the pressures they will have in regular life, like in high school.

Project's importance

Emanuel: We're trying to help the students. It only takes one time to mess up your life if you do drugs, alcohol or have sex.

Kathleen: I think it's a good idea to make them aware of the consequences of having sex, like pregnancy or STDs. And so I think that if it was my friend, I'd probably leave the choice up to them but make sure that they knew that there were big consequences of having sex outside of marriage or with maybe a partner who might've had multiple partners.

Adrienne: I think the media lesson that we do is really important because so much of the stuff that you see on TV these days is sex-oriented. You know, sex sells. And so you have to be that positive voice to come in and kind of contradict what it is that people hear in the music, see on the videos, see on TV, see in the movies.

Its impact

Terence: One of my motivations is seeing a student and that light goes on in the head and their face brightens up and that look of awe on their face says, "I get it."

Emanuel: An added benefit of the program is your presentation skills. You have to sit up there in front of 30-plus students and talk, and you know some of them are gonna be dozing off, sleeping, and some are gonna be staring at you. So you really have to stay grounded and know what you're doing.

Gabbi: It's a lot more rewarding than I thought it was going to be. I didn't really think that I would go home and I would feel so good about myself because of something that I'd done; I just thought it'd be something good to do, but I didn't think that I would feel so good after doing it.

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Brian Reissaus, 18.

REPORTERS: Anjoli Bhullar, 13; Keenen Brannon, 10; Carly Smith, 12.

Who we are

Y-Press is a nonprofit news organization with offices in The Indianapolis Star building. Stories are researched, reported and written by teams of young people ages 10 to 18. For more information, call (317) 444-2010 or send an e-mail to ypress@in.net.

Go online for more

Child abuse: If you want to read more about this topic from a child's perspective, check out www.ypress.org. Y-Press also invites students' response to a poll question and wants your comments about student-written movie and book reviews.