ASAP dance competition to combat drug, alcohol abuse
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Thursday February 9, 2017 11:40
Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention (ASAP) dance challenge is a competition, which will be mainly focused on educating the youth on the dangers of abusing alcohol and drugs.
One of the organisers, David Letshwiti said that the main reason of doing the dance competition is to reach out to as many youths as possible and discuss issues relating to the matter.
“We are targeting children and youth up to 30 years of age. The competition will be divided into age categories. They will be divided into two groups. There will be a group for five to 11-year-old children and the other group would be for 12 to 30-year- old participants,” he said.
He explained that they decided to launch ASAP dance competition after realising that they were not doing anything to help the government raise awareness against alcohol and drug abuse as the youth of this country. He said during their survey they realised that the youth in the country indulge in alcohol and drugs at primary school level.
“We also realised that although the vast majority of tertiary students were under the legal drinking age of 18, alcohol remains a clear drug of choice. It contributes to a wide range of problems like the use of marijuana,” he said.
He added that most of the youth is engaged in lot of car accidents, assaults, acquaintance rape and overdose, which can lead to being hospitalised, academic problems, suicide and unprotected sex.
He said the dance competition is their strategy to reduce these problems, as it will keep the youth busy.
“ASAP will disrupt the production and willingness to use drugs, supply of illicit drugs as there will be no buyers. It will reduce the impact of drug abuse and negative drug related activities on individuals and communities,” he said.
Letshwiti explained that the competition will be hosted in Gaborone, Palapye, Francistown and Maun. Gaborone and Francistown will welcome participants from surrounding areas to partake in the competition while Palapye will accommodate competitors from Serowe and Mahalapye.
The competition is to run for three months in all the stated regions. The winners on both the male and female senior categories will receive P25,000 and P10,000 for the junior category.
“This amounts to P70,000 to be won in each region. Registration will start in the first week of March and the competition will start in April,” he said.
Letshwithi said that because they did not have sponsors, the decided to have a registration fee, which amounts to P100 for persons aged between 12 to 30 and P50 for six to 11 years. He explained that the registration fee is meant to sustain the concept.
The event is coordinated by Street Line Investments (Pty) Ltd and Colourful People (Pty) Ltd.