CARE hosts school support camp |21 July 2018
Over 300 primary school pupils were exposed to interactive prevention sessions against substance abuse during an intensive week-long support camp at Baie Lazare primary school.
The camp was organised by CARE (Committee for Awareness, Resilience & Education against substance abuse) from July 2-7, 2018.
If formed part of CARE’s awareness, education and support campaign in schools for substance use prevention.
The school support camp was conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development, the Unit for Prevention and Control of Cardiovascular Diseases (UPCCD) from the Ministry of Health, the Baie Lazare district administration office and the Seychelles Civil Aviation Authority (SCAA).
This new approach focuses on one school for a week that allows all children to be exposed to 40 -80 minutes of prevention education, resilience and character building support to stay drugs free.
The support camp fits into CARE’s strategic whole school approach in prevention, allowing for a universal coverage in prevention and not only CARE club members. In view that crèche and early primary children are as exposed to substance use/abuse as children of the higher classes, through what they witness on a daily basis, they are also covered in an age appropriate format and within the early childhood child protection protocol. This is to help them to process their thoughts, feelings and reaction to prevent the normalisation of substance abuse.
The support camp programme has a strong base of spiritual resilience, healthy life choices, protective and positive behaviour, refusal skills and confidence building to stay resilient against negative influence and substance use.
The camp is held outside the classroom setting, in tents, to allow for minimal intrusion of normal daily classes and for better focus on the camp sessions.
The last day of the camp saw a ‘Celebration of life’ march organised by the school with the participation of the whole school. The march allowed the Baie Lazare school children to demonstrate their affirmative stance against drugs and their determination to stay drug free, through their pledge, songs and posters they had designed themselves.
This first camp focused on the theme ‘Les Lanmour Refleri – Donn ou lekor lanmour ki i merite, protez li kont lefe drog, lalkol ek sigaret.’ This theme aims to encourage children and youth to value themselves and be more resilient against all influences leading to substance use and abuse. Influences which particularly come from the immediate environment and peers, such as home, community, family, friends and relatives. This approach is based on evidence of research conducted with children indicating that their primary source of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes come from community shops, family and friends.
The camp ended with an outreach and community service day on Saturday. The community service was a school based beautification and mural project, which saw the participation of CARE club members, head teacher, teachers, parents and CARE. Flower and fruit plants for the garden were donated by parents and farmers. The day ended with a Thanksgiving mass presided by the Parish priest Father Yves and well attended by children, teachers and parents.
The camp has received the wide support of the school, parents, community leaders and the church.
Special thanks go to SCAA for the sponsorship of the tents, equipment and part of the educational materials.
The success of this camp is hugely attributed to the motivation, commitment and active participation of the head teacher, management staff, teachers and pupils of the Baie Lazare primary school.
The accompanying pictures show some highlights of the support camp.
Contributed