Personnel from the National Drug Abuse Control Council (NDACC) opened Drug Awareness Week on Monday of this week at the Alvin L Young Nazarene High School in San Jose Succotz Village, in the Cayo District. In his opening remarks, Luis Montero, coordinator for NDACC in Cayo told the students that “everyday more and more young people fall prey to Drugs.”
Drug Week will continue for the Alvin L Young High School until Friday of next week, under the theme, A Healthy Life is a Drug Free Life. During the next few days, several of the 110 adolescents at the High School, located just at the outskirts of Benque Viejo del Carmen, will be doing their own presentation about drugs.
Principal of the Nazarene High School in Succotz, Lavern Flowers, says she is grateful to NDACC for having such an event at her school.
“The young people are easily led by drugs, where marijuana is so rampant and alcohol…it is an epidemic; where the young people believe that it is their culture,”
According to Flowers, she would like her high school to have a school councilor to more effectively address the needs of students. However; two psychiatric nurse practitioners will soon be visiting her school to meet with the students.
A similar drug education event will be taking place at the Sacred Heart College in San Ignacio from February 23rd to the 26th. School Councilor at Sacred Heart College, Bertha Moralez, is already making the rounds in preparation for drug week. On Monday of this coming week, the Police Drama group is expected to participate at Sacred Heart College and presenters will be coming in from both the Ministry of Health and Youth Services to talk about the risk of drugs.
“When you look around, we have this problem with young people,” also admits Bertha Moralez, saying that the upcoming drug awareness week was to “…bring awareness about the consequences.”
Director of the NDACC within the Ministry of Health Esner Vellos agrees and demarcates clearly where the frontal attack against drug abuse is being taken. According to Esner Vellos, the NDACC continues its efforts to reduce the demand for drugs and to alleviate the consequences associated with the misuse of drugs “…to create a society free from the abuse of drugs.” He says that this is being done in partnership with the Ministry of Health and the local high schools in the Cayo District, with a focus on providing information about the effects caused by the consumption of both licit and illicit substance among adolescents.
As the war on drugs currently stands, NDACC provides its staff with all the resources required to effectively do their work, but that work is not only limited to drug prevention in schools. NDACC is currently addressing issues in the community through their Community Empowerment Program. For that empowerment to happen more quickly, NDACC must now partner at the local level with the Community Police, Social and Education Departments.
