The National Council on Substance Abuse (NCSA) is looking for more volunteers.
Manager of the NCSA, Tessa Chadderton-Shaw made the appeal to members of the public who have time and are willing to serve their community to come forward and become a trained NCSA volunteer.
Speaking at a press conference held earlier this week to officially launch Drug Awareness Month, Chadderton-Shaw said that volunteering is not only meaningful community service and rewarding for the individual, but also helps the NCSA to boost its community-based prevention efforts. She pointed out that the work of the NCSA is often bolstered by volunteers who work tirelessly to make a difference in people’s lives.
Referring to the theme for this year’s Drug Awareness Month ‘Know the Facts, Make the Choice’, she said that it is important for persons to understand the facts and to debunk the many myths relative to drug and alcohol abuse and to make healthy choices for our future stability as people, as a society and as a nation.
“Protecting our human resource from the scourge of drugs is one of the most important tasks in moving our small country forward. Our people are Barbados’ greatest asset,” she maintained.
With that in mind, she noted that drug trafficking is no doubt also a problem and one that transcends borders, as are some of the crimes associated with it. She explained that there are multiple addictions that generates from such activity which have the potential to affect all of us and we must play our part in fighting them.
“Indeed, it is a shared evil, but that fact must not lead to the responsibility being diluted among us. All of us together, working in co-operation must bolster our ability to tackle and resolve the problem and try to put an end to this threat,” the NCSA manager maintained.
Chadderton-Shaw contended that the NCSA and its partners must send a strong message to Barbadians that there are no real and lasting benefits to the use of legal drugs such as alcohol and nicotine, and certainly none to be derived from the use of illegal ones.
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