Health Briefs
A U.S.-based foundation, Annmom Foundation, has partnered Re-Orientation Advocates of Nigeria (RAN), an NGO on advocacy against drug abuse prevention, treatment, and care schools and religious centres nationwide.
Mrs Ann Ehigiator, Founder, Annmom Foundation, said this at a media roundtable in Abuja on Friday to mark the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Mr Charles Folayan, the Executive Director, RAN.
Ehigiator, who is also an Emergency Medical Records (EMR) Consultant, said drug abuse had become a menace in Nigeria and must be addressed using internationally proving strategies.
She explained that drug use lied at the foundation of a long list of social deviances, truancy, restiveness, crime, and criminality.
She further explained that its debilitating effects echoed across multiple fronts, stretching from the family through the community, the educational sector, and other social frontiers.
This, she said often left a dark cloud of catastrophic health challenges for not only the victims and their families but the immediate communities and the nation at large.
Ehigiator commended the National Assembly for declaring War against drug abuse in their June 2 resolution
She also commended the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) for its effort to stem the tide of increasing drug abuse by curtailing measures and rolling out programmes and activities geared towards curbing the menace.
“However, the situation requires a multi sectorial robust, expansive, and all-inclusive strategic effort by every well-meaning individual and institution.”
Folayan, RAN Executive Director, on his part said the social intervention and advocacy initiative focused on growing the largest network of advocates on drug abuse prevention, treatment, and care in the country.
He said it would also provide expedited rehabilitation for victims of drug abuse.
Folayan said the Drug Prevention, Treatment, and Care Advocates (DPTC) programme was a five-pronged multidimensional and multi sectorial intervention.
This, he said was to disabuse the mind of the young people from drug abuse through re-orientation, whilst working on the causative factors, challenges, and solutions (NAN)
TS
Tags: Ann Ehigiator Mr Charles Folayan
