By Peter Duru, Makurdi

The Pastoral Resolve, PARE, has put together a two day Conflict Prevention Forum in Makurdi the Benue state capital with a focus on youths engagement and sensitization on the dangers of drug abuse.

Speaking on the initiative, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of Pastoral Resolve on the Community Initiative to Promote Peace, CIPP, project Hadiza Nuhu explained that it is an activity from the CIPP, a USAID funded project.

She said the activity would take place in Makurdi and Buruku Local Government Areas of the state with the aim of sensitizing the participants on the dangers of drug abuse and youth restiveness in the communities.

She said resource persons and officials from the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, were engaged to make presentations in order to expose participants to the dangers of drug abuse and its attendant consequences on peaceful coexistence in the communities.

According to her, “this activity is targeted at the youths and the aim is to sensitize the youths on the dangers of drug abuse and for them to be able to come up with community action plans to be able to prevent or address the issues of drug abuse and youth restiveness in their various communities.

“We have targeted 50 participants mostly youths and few parents in a two day programme in Makurdi Local Government Area. After the Makurdi event we will proceed to Buruku for another two days event.

“We have invited among others the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency to come and give them a sensitization talk on drugs, the types of drugs being abused, the effects and consequences of drug abuse.

“Our objective for the programme is to reduce violence in our communities. So it tries to see that locals work towards preventing violence in their respective communities. That it why it is called community initiative.

“It is actually targeted at what communities will do to promote peace on their own. And to prevent violence or address dispute by not allowing it to escalate into violence.”

Speaking further the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer said “this very youth engagement was born as a result of our previous activity where most community members came up with the fact that youth restiveness is one of the drivers of conflict in their various communities which will usually push youths into cultism, drug abuse and some other vices.

“So today this activity is targeting the youths. We will sensitize them on the dangers of what they are doing because the fact is that social vices, cultism and the rest are driven by drug abuse,” she said

Speaking on the benefits of the initiative, a participate, Israel Yange from Agboughul community in Makurdi expressed delight that he was part of the programme which he said “has opened my eyes to the dangers of drug abuse which fuels crisis in the communities.

“In my area we have issues of youths who are addicted to drugs and they are known persons who fuel crisis in our community. So after this I will see how I can transfer the knowledge I have acquired here to impact my community positively.”

On her part, Doofan Iorkohol said “I appreciate the efforts of Pastoral Resolve to get us enlightened on the dangers of drug abuse and how it is fueling communal crisis in our localities. I must say that I have learnt a lot from the programme.

“After this I am going to my community to step down what I have learnt in order to help stem the issues of drug abuse, youths restiveness and communal crisis in my community,” she added.

Discussions and presentations at the event centered on Socio-Cultural factors contributing to drug abuse; Drug abuse as driver of conflict in the community; Addressing resistance to drugs and substance abuse; and Action plans to address drugs/substance abuse in the community.