DADU: Speakers at a seminar held at Sindh University on Wednesday urged teachers and students to play their role in sensitising communities to harmful effects of drug addiction in the province.

They said that awareness campaigns for prevention of drugs in youth could be launched via declamation and poster contests, formation of on-campus anti-drug societies and through media.

They were speaking at the moot on Drugs Abuse Awareness and Prevention organised by the Bureau of STAGS, University of Sindh, in collaboration with Anti-Crime & Anti-Narcotics Organisation at the university’s Jamshoro campus.

Additional Collector Customs Tahir Abbas urged both teachers and students to play their role in sensitising communities to harmful effects of drug abuse, while Hyderabad’s Assistant Director ANF Haroon Tariq underscored the need for protecting the youth from falling victim to drug addiction by providing them sports facilities and encouraging them to take up healthy activities to change their lifestyle.

Psychiatrist Dr Shehr­yar Qambrani said the print and electronic media and civil society should play a positive role in creating awareness among masses about the abuse of drugs. “Drug addiction can be

prevented if proper measures are taken. Public awareness seminars and campaigns can also be helpful in this regard,” he said.

Associate Professor of Psychology Dr Farhat Jokhyo highlighted the role of government in the prevention of drug addiction and announced that his department would work together with the ANF and other organisations to conduct research on how to overcome increasing abuse of drugs.

Bureau of STAGS director Dr Ghazala Panhwar called for elimination of poverty and ignorance which sowed seeds of pessimism in youths and led them to drug addiction.

“Healthy activities like sports and debates play a greater role in preventing the youth from becoming addicts,” she said.

“It is our responsibility to save our generation from drugs and build a progressive, prosperous and drug free Pakistan,” she said.

Seminar on ceramics art

The Shaheed Allah Buksh Soomro (SABS) University of Art, Design and Heritages, Jamshoro organised a seminar on Cultural Integration — My Art and World Ceramic Cultural Heritage by writer and artist from China Prof Guangzhen Zhou.

Mr Zhou, a cera­mic artist, educator and writer, said he was working to find different traditional pottery techniques that people used in various coun­tries and in Pakistan he had to conduct research on blue pottery found in Nasarpur, Hala and Multan.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2024