I am here not to lecture you, but to tell you a few home truths the main one being, that you are here because of me. Workshops and seminars are being held all over Kenya and indeed the world because of me! Campaigns and media blitz are held because of me. Who am I?

I represent the alcohol and other drug taking culture among the youth who comprise of your children and students, of which culture is causing growing concern to the nation as we are bringing up a generation of addicts which we ignore at our own peril.

If we continue to ignore this situation we might as well buy poison and kill off our children for it would be more humane than the current slow suicide we are allowing them to undergo, through our own fear and ignorance. We should poison them so that they die instantly for it would be more humane, than this current shirking of our responsibility.

The alternative to this is to educate yourselves on the whole issue of alcohol and other drugs as well as reasons why young people find them so attractive as to turn to them in drives.

Only when armed with this knowledge will we be able to stem this tide which threatens to drown the nation sweeping away all our youth in its suffocating path.

It is only with this knowledge that you will also learn how best to devise and implement demand reduction strategies modeled on complete behavioral change.

Note here that this knowledge is also completely beneficial to your own lifestyle as a teacher as well as that of your family. Thus like the recovering addict, it is only through helping others that you also help yourself.

Let us also take cognisance of the fact that the drug-taking problem in a school might not only stem from students but also teachers and other members of staff.

Thus headmasters should address this issue by finding out in what ways he or his staff members are encouraging the alcohol and other drug use culture in their school either by omission or commission. Is the atmosphere prevalent in the school conducive to the promotion of a drug free lifestyle?

Schools should have clearly established and publicised so that everyone has no doubt, rules concerning use of drugs. Lines delineating what is acceptable behavior and what is not should be made freely available to all and should include zero tolerance for drugs.

Encourage staff to not only act as good role models, but to listen to and respect students too. Students must not feel high-handedness from staff, and that there is no use appealing to a sense of fairness as they will not be listened to anyway.

Make sure your programmes are targeted at specific age groups and not just one ‘blanket size fits all’ and that awareness is an ongoing programme and not one off once a year affairs.

Though ideally all members of staff should be conversant with drugs of abuse and signs and symptoms of the same, there should be at least one member in each school well versed on this subject who students can turn to and bare their souls to knowing that this info will be held in strict confidence.

Get people to give talks in your schools avoiding boring lecture type talks but instead having interactive talks where the students can participate and makes them feel that they are part of the solution. It is important to have speakers who can relate to your students.

You have to realise that alcohol and other drug use activities are packaged by the manufacturers as well as peer groups to look glamorous, and chic and are thus alluring thus information to counter this must also be just as carefully and attractively packaged. It must be exciting, fascinating while still being factual.

Extreme caution must be exercised with these presentations to avoid inconsistencies or outright fallacies for young people look out for these and once they punch a hole in your presentation they disregard the whole message in its entirety including the 99% of correct information, and often with dire and even fatal consequences.

Use recovering persons (alcoholics or other addicts who have been sober for at least one year and are working an abstinence based recovery programme) to tell their stories and answer questions from the students. These stories have been found in many cases to be more effective than ‘preaching’.

Let the students ‘own’ the awareness and demand reduction programme by involving them in the activities both in the school and the community surrounding the school giving them assignments which involve them actively finding out about drugs and putting together awareness packages.

These very same students are also the most effective conduit for educating their parents and other family members and the community and this also gives them a sense of pride. Of special note here is that education for prevention must encompass all who surround the child e.g. parents, relatives and neighbours.

It should be noted that programmes that focus on the whole family have more impact than those which are either targeted at the parents alone or the kids alone bearing in mind that drug addiction or use is a ‘whole family’ disease and therefore one sided programmes or blinkered programmes will not be as effective.

The school environment is no exception and let them have the leeway or encouragement to do a study and come up with recommendations of how the teachers and school administration are not promoting a drug free environment and the suggested way forward from their point of view. If they come up with good recommendations these must not only be implemented but must be seen to be implemented.

Cutting corners in terms of time or finance for drug abuse awareness activities with the excuse that they take too much of the teachers and students time, and vital time from tuition is based on faulty reasoning for a school with a drug problem will loose ten-fold more time mopping up the spill-over from drug abuse that by preventive education.

Students on drugs cannot do anything else anyway and will cost the school much more in terms of lost man-hours and money for damages from riots and other unrest as well as theft petty and otherwise.

The aim of all these activities is to turn the whole school into peer educators.

The school must also get information materials and videos so that the students can start a print and audiovisual resource center where they are also encouraged to make a lot of their own materials where access to these are not easy.

Clubs should also be started. From these clubs and or groups there will emanate constant activities to promote a drug-free lifestyle. Note that even existing clubs can have their own drug-free living activities e.g. drug-free sports and lifestyle by the various sporting teams whose members are role models, plays by the dram club, debates by debating clubs, newsletter by journalism club, posters: art club, poems, poetry club, songs by band or music club or choir, ad infinitum only limited by the teachers and students imagination and the former should challenge the latter so that they own the programme. These clubs should also have competitions which should be encouraged at inter-school and national levels.

School students should also target and challenge society over alcohol and other drug use and students should be at the forefront through various activities to bring about pride in drug-free living e.g inundating the leading dailies with letters, peaceful marches and demos, petitions to their M.P’s church leaders, media houses, P.C’s etc on various issues like advertising, alcohol and other drug use by their parents etc.

Emphasis is still on the students owning this process and have them led to see that concerns them so that they are in charge because it is their lives at which they do own and this gives them a sense of control over themselves and thus helps deal with sense of hopelessness they see all around them where their futures just look bleak.

Reward the students who actively and overtly propagate drug-free living, by recognising those who choose to live drug-free as well as championing this kind of lifestyle. Usually such students are derided by the others led by the drug using peers who even with their drug-taking lifestyles are elevated and idolised. Arrange for trophies, certificates special T-shirts etc which are not easily attainable and thus when they are received are displayed or worn with pride.

Let us use the youth who are most at risk to also clean up and change Kenyans society’s increasing tolerance and casual attitude towards use of alcohol and other drugs, use the youth to strengthen the family unit and thus the nation.

Use peer leaders among the students to disseminate information to their mates by giving them additional training on drug abuse, while encouraging older students to mentor younger ones acting as big brother or sisters. This inculcates a strong sense of responsibility and pride in doing the right thing.

Parents to should be taken to task over the excesses of their children and penalised so that they begin to take a more active role in awareness issues. As it stands now they have abdicated their role to the schools and even pass the blame when schools are burnt etc to teachers.

Parents have to realise that they will be held accountable if they do not play their part in the activities lined up to educate their children on drugs and their participation should not be from the periphery but right up front.

Parents have to complement the role played by teachers and church leaders because ultimately their input is crucial. Thus they have to set parameters concerning behavior for their children with firm boundaries and consequences for failing to adhere to these rules for their children.

Form groups where they can discuss issues relating to drug use and drug abuse prevention programmes by the schools and be strong participants in the schools prevention programme.

Ultimately all these activities should be with one result in mind and that is that students (young people) reach the conclusion that drug-free living is the better option and thus modify their behavior accordingly. Only then can the information and education said to have been effective.

David Ogot is a Director of goinghomedotcom Trust a non-profit alcohol and other drug abuse awareness and consulting Organisation based in Nairobi. He is an author of children’s books and a freelance journalist/producer and a recipient in 2003 of the Kenya Union of Journalists, Journalist Of The Year award for ‘Overall Anti-Drug and Alcohol Abuse Crusader’ and also ‘Columnist/Commentator most Consistent in the Campaign Against Drug Abuse’ as well as the National Hospital Insurance Fund NHIF 2003 ‘Afya’ Excellence Awards 2003 Golden Pen Award for “Consistency in public health education”. The goinghomedotcom Trust has also produced in 2002 the first in a series of awareness videos the widely distributed video on alcoholism ‘Nobody Kicks A Dead Dog’ He is also the Chairman of the newly formed Kenya scriptwriters forum, 'KICHAWASI' (Kikundi Cha Waandishi Wa Sinema). Ogot is a recovering alcoholic.

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