The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) Foundation in partnership with the Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC) have embarked on a sensitization programme on the dangers of illicit drug use and abuse in the Amanful community in Takoradi.
The multi-stakeholder engagement provided education on various types of substance abuse, the risks of addiction and how to avert them. It also offered avenues of support and counselling for individuals seeking help.
The Metropolitan Chief Executive of Sekondi-Takoradi, Mr. Abdul Mumin Issah, in his speech, highlighted several dangers of illicit drug use on the youth and bemoaned the rate at which the canker is eroding the future the community’s brightest and best.
“There is the need for victims of Drug Abuse to be managed and freed from the grips of the menace which consequently affects their mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing and, in turn, leads to bad reputation and loss of lives,” he added.
SNCO Grace Annor-Baah, the Western Regional Commander of NACOC, said the available data on substance abuse in the Sekondi – Takoradi Metropolis is alarming and hence NACOC’s decision to galvanize support from several partners to wage war against it and offer support to communities and victims needing help. She called on community leaders and parents to be interested in the lives of their children to identify and curb vices that are detrimental to themselves and society.
The Regional Director of Social Welfare, Mr. Jonathan Gyau Gyan, spoke against harmful practices like smoking of marijuana, heroin, taking unprescribed drugs and how it correlates with outcomes like domestic violence, social crimes, imprisonments, and collapse of the community.
On his part, Nana Otuo Siriboe, representative of the GNPC Foundation, rehashed GNPC’s commitment to positively impacting the lives of Ghanaians through its support for interventions such as the kind instituted by NACOC. This, he said, “is to ensure that the safety, well-being, and future of the youth is not lost to the menace of drug abuse.”
He tasked all gathered to be Ambassadors of the fight against drug abuse and to continue being each other’s keeper in the collective bid to safeguard the future of the youth. He also highlighted several social impact programmes designed by the Foundation and made available to the people of the Western Region and beyond to help improve their livelihoods. “These include educational scholarship opportunities for the needy but brilliant members of the community as well as support given to artisans under our Economic Empowerment programme to keep children and the youth from falling victims to drugs,” he concluded.
The event which also had, on the sidelines, free medical screening for participants and residents of Amanful, was preceded by an exhibition by NACOC that took participants through the realistic impacts of drugs on victims as it gave a devastating pictorial view of the various stages that addicts go through before their breakdown or death.[ads3]
This outreach programme is a follow-up on an earlier Training Workshop organized last week by NACOC with support from the GNPC Foundation for 20 teachers from selected schools in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis (STMA) to build their capacity in the management of drug use and abuse amongst students. The workshop offered a platform for skills and knowledge sharing on drugs classifications, social stigma, Counselling, and documentation.
Source: GNPC Foundation
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