NDACC initiates sports programme as drug alternative
It is certainly not a new concept but the idea of promoting sports as an alternative to drugs, seems like a winner. Janelle Chanona reports on the latest effort in Belize City.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
This afternoon, U.S. Ambassador to Belize Robert Dieter, Minister of Health Jose Coye and Belize City Mayor Zenaida Moya took their best shot as part of the official launch of a new initiative by the National Drug Abuse Control Council called Hoops! You?ve got Game!
According to director of NDACC Karen Bodden, the idea to use healthy competition in basketball to demonstrate the positive alternatives to drug use.
Karen Bodden, Director NDACC
?Unless we address the present, there will be no future. If our young people are to be ready for the changing of the guard, then we the generation going on before must ensure that they are equipped with the appropriate knowledge, skills and attitude to ensure the continuity of the Belizean society. Each one of us must take up the challenge of safeguarding our nation?s most valuable asset, our children.?
According to the latest national statistics, Belizean children are experimenting with drugs at a younger age than ever before. That means that an alarming number of youths are becoming habitual users and addicts well before they graduate high school. In an effort to combat that reality, today the United States Government teamed up with the Ministry of Health and NDACC under the theme ?It takes a community to raise a child.? Today the six ?Hoops!? teams were presented with a symbolic basketball.
Robert Dieter, U.S. Ambassador to Belize
?I make a commitment that if you call the Embassy and you tell me when you?re going to be playing one of your games, that I will make my best effort to be there to see if you actually Got Game or not Got Game.?
The six participating high schools are Wesley High, E.P.Yorke, Sadie Vernon, Gwen Lizarraga, St. Michael?s and Excelsior Junior High. Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.
This is the second joint sports initiative of the United States and Belize Governments. Earlier this year, “Soccer in the Streets: No Drugs No Crime,” was launched in Corozal.
