Day Long Awareness Campaign on Drug & Mental Health at UAP

The Social Counseling Centre of UAP organized a day long awareness campaign on drugs and mental health issues on 15 January, 2019 at the UAP plaza. The objective of this campaign was to make students aware about drugs and mental health issues.

The program was designed with different kinds of activities throughout the day. There were ribbons on which different statements were written like, “I am drug free, are you?”, “Mental health matters!” etc. The volunteers of the campaign took position on the university entrance and tied ribbon to each of the students. The students were also given leaflets where different information about availing mental health service was mentioned. There were oath boards on which the students put their hand impression with different colors to pledge that, they will remain drug free. There were different assessment tools for mental health and addiction. There were different posters on which quotes related to mental health and drugs were written. There were also two boards on which the students wrote reasons, why one should keep oneself away from drugs.

The program was inaugurated by putting hand impression on the oath board by Air Cdre (Retd) Ishfaq Ilahi Choudhury, Director, DSW, UAP. This way of inaugurating made the students motivated and they expressed it with a big applause.

After the inauguration the oath board was open for the students to put their hand impression and pledge that they will remain drug free. Students put their hand impression on the board throughout the day. They also wrote hundreds of reason, why one should keep oneself away from drugs, like, ‘It damages our health, body and mind’, ‘For a healthy living’. These statements reflect their engagement, hope and motivation to keep themselves away from drugs.

Throughout the day, the volunteers distributed around fifteen hundred ribbons and four hundred leaflets. There was also an opportunity to do initial assessments of mental health. There were several assessment tools, like, depression, anxiety, narcotics addiction, love obsession, personality assessment, anger and hopelessness. The surrounding was made more colorful using different anti-drug drawings and statements.

A simple question can bring change in ones’ life, because questions lead to answers and answer leads to appropriate action. The gathering and active participation of the students on the campaign indicate that a question was yielded and the students are motivated enough to answer and act accordingly.