Aiborlang Nongsiej
Bosco B.Ed College, Dimapur
This is the serious issue in Nagaland at present where every educator tries to promote forward to help the younger generation. Reading your daily esteem newspaper, I am contented to see that almost every day there are reports of different institutions and organisations conducted a seminar on free tobacco. But the big question is, is there any improvement in our people here of not using tobacco as their daily refreshment? Personally I believe that parents are the best motivators for their own children who could inculcate on them the bad effect of tobacco especially when they are at their very young age. There is a famous saying which says ‘It is better to build children than to repair people’. Hence, in my opinion I would suggest that it will be more effective to open up to children about the bad effect of tobacco than to go and repair people who are already get used to it. By saying this I do not mean that we should abandon those people who are already addicted to it. Obviously, they too need more guidance and information about the ill effect of tobacco. But more than that children are the future of our society and they need more care and guidance in order to become better people in the society. Yet with lots of seminars and awareness programmes conducted in and around Nagaland, it is very unfortunate to see that many youngsters being enslaved by this dangerous substance. When I said this point I did not mean to condemn our young people here but to make them aware that many organisations care for their healthy living by imparting in them the message about the dreadful effect of consuming tobacco. However, more than that it is the duty of parents, teachers, and elders to save our younger generation. Therefore, it is the big responsibility of parents to grow up their own children well because it is very unlucky to see our children being left alone only to the helpers in our families just because parents are busy with their different office works. If this continues to happen in our society what will be the children learn from their own parents who are supposed to form them to be the better person in the society. In my personal encounter with some Naga youths, when asked about how they began to smoke and consuming talab, the general answer is because of imitating friends and mostly they began at the very early age in schools. Here is another big responsibility for the teachers who are their second parents of how we are going to help the children that consuming tobacco is bad for health. The duty of the teachers is not only to teach the lessons and go back home but the most important is to teach them through their lives and examples. It is also very unfortunate to see teachers coming to classes with full talab in their mouth, if this is our daily routine in our schools, how can we inculcate to children that consuming tobacco and talab is bad for health. Remember children are good imitators and their mind is still fresh to grasp things. Teachers must be conscious enough while teaching the children in school of not showing them the inappropriate acts that are not meant for them instead they can encourage them through many good qualities that they possess within them because ‘the right way is always the best way’. Hence, to be more effective on the issue of making our society tobacco free, children and youth are the first one to be targeted.
