Youth action on drug awareness
Four young people from the Beechmount area in West Belfast; Kerri
McIlvenna, Danielle Maguire, Sinead Wylie and John Devine spoke
to AP/RN about the recent seminar on Drugs and Alcohol Awareness
jointly organised by them and the Falls Community Council (FCC)
and the Beechmount Community Project. The evening seminar was
attended by 100 young people from local schools and youth clubs
from across West Belfast in Corpus Christi College last Wednesday
21 October.
Following on from completing a 9 week course on drug and alcohol
awareness course run by the FCC, the four decided that the issues
surrounding drug use were too important to walk away from and
initiated, from start to finish, the evening of Quizzes,
workshops and a buffet for their peers.
The group told AP/RN that ``working as a group'' had been an
important aspect of the course and seminar as well as realising
that many of the issues around drug and alcohol misuse ``couldn't
be tackled on their own''.
Their main concerns were that drugs should be ``taken more
seriously'' and that people need to ``pull together'' in organising
``community responses''. The group also raised the issue of the
need for more resources, in order to facilitate more youth club
activities.
The FCC also runs a range of Open College Network accredited
drugs awareness courses for young people, parents and community
workers.
Sean Devine, the FCC's shadow youth coordinator said ``this is
part of a bigger step forward for other young people. It is about
these young people standing up in their communities and will have
a knock on effect as they become peer educators and spread out in
the community.''
Devine also said another key issue raised by the young group was
the need for them to educate adults.
The group also said, ``adults need to know about drugs and what to
look for and be part of a wider effort to make ``drug dealers more
aware of what drugs are actually doing to people in the
community''.
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