WSU has welcomed the Eastern Cape Liquor Board (ECLB) to conduct alcohol awareness campaigns on the University’s four campuses with hopes of creating awareness around issues of alcohol abuse.
These campaigns will be conducted in partnership with the Students Affairs Office and the Student Representative Council (SRC).
“The issue we intended to address is alcohol abuse by our students. There are planned series of campaigns on campus and in residences. Liquor board will collaborate with Student Affairs in all activities to ensure integration and impact of their campaigns,” said Acting Director: Student Affairs, Dr Thandiwe Mangxa.
According to the ECLB officials, the collaboration seeks to alleviate the rate of alcohol abuse, promote responsible alcohol consumption, instill a sense of responsibility and promote alcohol free residences amongst students.
“There was an increasing number of cases in certain institutions of higher learning such as physical violence, suicide and high droupout rate due to excessive alcohol consumption by students. It was at that point that some institution of higher learning reached out to the Eastern Cape Liquor Board about these cases of excessive alcohol consumption,” said team member, Tutukani Matikinca
The campaign mainly seeks to promote responsible alcohol consumption amongst students, and the rallying theme for the campaign is “don’t drown your future, drink responsibly.
The team stipulates its main objective as not to control, but to educate students on healthy ways to consume alcohol.
Some of the aspects they will address are fetal alcohol syndrome, which occurs when females indulge in alcohol while pregnant, drunken driving and/or road safety, and binge drinking/responsible drinking
“As students, we come from different backgrounds that may lead us to binge drink in order to deal with our problems. As the SRC, we believe that these campaigns will help address issues of binge drinking, because drinking alcohol is not wrong, but abusing it is,” said SRC Mthatha Premier, Litha Ngalonkulu.
The campaigns will be running in several institutions of higher learning such as Fort Hare, Nelson Mandela University and Rhodes University and Buffulo City TVET College to name a few.
-Ongezwa Sigodi