Drug Awareness Week with SANCA
SANCA's director, Walter Peterson challenges the youth to 'kick a bad habit' for Drug Awareness Week.
In recognising Drug Awareness Week (24-28 June) as well as International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking (26 June) – we take a look at how this week effects the youth by speaking to drug awareness experts.
The youth is seen as the future by society and it’s important that their mental health is protected at all costs. The The South African National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (SANCA) is a non-governmental organisation, according to their website, their major objectives are the prevention and treatment of alcohol and other drug dependence.
The Durban branch is run by Walter Peterson who is empathetic to the background the drug-using youth is exposed to, “ The youth find themselves under strenuous conditions and situations either at school or at home,” he said, “some are presented by the threat of gang violence and mitigate the stress from school.”
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Although Peterson understands that his organisation will never be able to raise drug awareness on their own, he still highlights ways in which the youth can get involved in anti-drug campaigns and how SANCA is playing its part with the Teenagers Against Drug Abuse (T.A.D.A).
“We encourage the youth to take part in alternative activities and clubs in order to stay away from the influence [of drugs]” Peterson explains further “We also have a challenge for SANCA’s drug awareness week called, ‘Kick Your Habit’, where we challenge you [the youth] to kick one habit for the week, it could be drinking, smoking or even social media. We want people to understand what it’s like for an addict to quit something.”
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“Although this message has been used a lot, we at SANCA still use ‘Say no to drugs’ message to the schools we visit, it’s important that we reach out to the parents and students.”
SANCA also interact with other social systems like churches to spread their message and will be at the Tongaat Library in their efforts to reach out to communities who are plagued by young people suffering from drug abuse.
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