Kohima, November 18 (MExN): The Shalom Rehabilitation Centre (SRC), Dimapur sensitised the student-teachers from Modern Institute of Teacher Education (MITE) on “Alcoholic & Drug Abuse Sickness” during their field trip to the centre on November 16 with a theme, “Rediscovering The Last and Lost Ones.”
The trip was organised as a part of the MITE’s extension activities to enable the student-teachers developing awareness on the causes, concerns and misconceptions about alcoholism and drug abuse, stated a press release from the Institute, quoting Dr TS Pandian, the coordinator of the field trip.
Consequently, it was aimed at identifying, understanding, empathising, and reinstating the children into the system rather than expelling them from the school community, it said.
On the occasion, Fr Chacko Karinthayil, the Director of SRC delivered a lecture on “General Aspects of Alcoholism” and it was followed by the lived experiences of the rehabilitated gentlemen serving as counselors, the release said.
During their discourse, the counselors urged the society in “general and teaching community in particular to know that alcoholism or drug abuse as a sickness that needs to be treated and not to be stigmatised, criminalised and perceived as a sin or lowly behavior.”
Branding or stigmatising an addict leaves a scar not alone on the accused but also on their children who are not supposed to be punished without committing any wrong, the student-teachers were sensitised.
Teachers should have a new outlook with empathy for the children who started using drugs out of curiosity and had never set that as an aim in their life – to be an alcoholic or drug abuser, they were told.
The end of the awareness programme brought a theatric experience upon the student-teachers and a determination upon some student teachers to take counseling as their career, the release added.
