Anti alcohol abuse campaign launched
ALEXANDRA -Lovelife has kicked off a national campaign to tackle underage drinking and alcohol abuse by youths in the country.
LoveLife, a non profit organisation has kicked off a national campaign to tackle underage drinking and alcohol abuse in youths.
The campaign is part of the organisation’s objectives of developing young leaders and a youth leadership culture which promotes positive lifestyles and healthy sexuality.
The year-long campaign, play4LIFE was launched at the Eastbank community hall and attended by secondary school children from four local schools, representatives of non-profit organisations, government departments and community leaders.
The campaign hopes to achieve their objectives through various strategies to tackle challenges faced by youths including gender-based violence, perceptions of unemployment and alcohol abuse.
Thandi McCloy, of LoveLife said research had proved a correlation in the increase of alcohol abuse with risky lifestyles among youths.
“In most instances, the abuse leads to lowered resistance to many temptations leading to high risk sexual behaviour, not using condoms, casual sex and poor safe sex negotiation ability,” she said.
She added that running the campaign for a year would practically reduce risky behaviour resulting from uncontrolled alcohol consumption, which often led to teenage pregnancies, transmission of HIV/Aids, other sexually transmitted diseases, and bunking and dropping out of school.
“In the end, we hope to have impacted thousands of youths to improve their self-esteem and empowered them to develop coping mechanisms against peer pressure,” she concluded.
The campaign will be conducted through LoveLife’s programmes called ground-breakers which is run by out of school youths, and another called impintshis (friends) for those still at school. This peer-based approach will enable the campaign to reach youths through their own language and edutainment approach.
Simphiwe Sibeko, a ground-breaker, said many youths resorted to alcohol out of frustration by not finding employment, and by not getting support to further their studies even after obtaining good passes at school.
Emmanuel Mangena of the South African National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence advised the youths to rather get high on self esteem and not alcohol. “Build yourselves as personal brands which emphasise self-confidence,” he said.
Motivational speaker, Wendy Mbanga urged the youths to deal with frustration and boredom by directing their minds to always think about the good in their lives. “You should build your future from today by being happy and grateful for being alive and well,” she said.
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