By: Barbara Kumah
The month of May, is observed as International Day of the Boy Child and to mark the occasion, Boy Child Supportive Care Foundation, a non-profit organization, put together an event, for boys from selected schools, in the Dome-Kwabenya constituency.
At the programme, speakers including the Member of Parliament for Dome Kwabenya, Elikplim Akurugu, advised Parents to take the mental wellbeing of their male children more seriously in order to curb the spate of drug use among the youth especially young men.
Madam Akurugu, while addressing nearly one thousand five hundred male students, lamented the surge in drug abuse among the youth especially young boys and attributed the problem, to lack of societal care. “During my campaign in the Dome-Kwabenya constituency, I entered a lot of ghettos and communities, and got depressed due to things I saw”. “Society has a lot to do” Madam Akurugu said.
According to the Dome-Kwabenya Mp, it is the collective responsibility of society to ensure children are raised right as was the practice of old times and not just the individual responsibility of parents as seen in modern times which is mostly due to the fear that reprimanding or correcting a child for waywardness, may only attract confrontation from parents or guardians.
She noted that, the surge in drug use among the youth especially young men, must be of grave concern to society, which must come together to find pragmatic ways of addressing this crisis, adding that Ghana risks losing its teeming youth to drug abuse if immediate steps are not taken to salvage the situation.
Other speakers at the program, including a clinical psychologist spoke to the boys and participants about attaching seriousness to their mental wellbeing
One Response
very encouraging to see boys receiving support from the foundation