Goemkarponn desk
PANAJI: The Goa State Commission for Protection of Child Rights launched one of the largest drug abuse prevention drive in school settings on 27th June at Institute Menezes Braganza at the State Level Workshop on Prediction, Protection and Prevention, in the presence of Shri Shivendu Bhusan, IPS, SP Anti Narcotic Cell, Shailesh Zingade, Director of Education, Ajit Panchwadkar, Director of Social Welfare, Sindhu Prabhudessai, Asst. Director of Education (Academics), Peter F. Borges, Chairperson, Goa State Commission for Protection of Child Rights and Members of the Commission.
Attended by 370 School Nodal Teachers of Prahari Clubs, a club to ensure a drug-free campus by imposing a total ban on the possession or consumption or use of drugs and alcohol by students at the school, within or outside the campus. A large range of preventive programmes will be promoted through the clubs to prevent children from using tobacco, alcohol, and drugs.
Speaking on the occasion, Shivendu Bhusan highlighted the need for coordinated efforts between drug demand reduction and supply reduction. Dr Ravindra Agrawal, President of the Psychiatric Society of Goa, stressed the various positive approaches that the clubs should adopt to create a safe environment in school. Dr Rajesh Dhume, Senior Psychiatrist, highlighted those consequences for young adolescents, their families, and communities, and Dr Kashyap Bandodkar talked about tobacco consumption as an epidemic of epic proportion while highlighting the vaping and e-cigarettes problem where a new form of nicotine addiction is catching up among young students and with added flavours and attractive designs, adolescents were the soft targets.
Speaking on sustaining and strengthening the prevention programme, the Chairperson cited some mandatory actions for the schools and a list of illustrative innovative ideas and actions that could be implemented as part of the sustained action plan. He called on all the nodal teachers to have a yearly action plan to strengthen prevention efforts to contain the substance abuse problem among students.
All the nodal teachers, in unison, asked the Hon’ble Commission to urgently get the ‘vimal’ advertisement removed from school buses.
The Commission announced plans for capacity building of stakeholders, i.e., counsellors, and nodal teachers, to create a cadre of professionals to provide a range of substance use prevention and early intervention services and support and formulation and adaptation of school drug policy to set normative values and expectations for student behaviour as well as to document procedures for dealing with drug-related incidents in
