Shillong,March 06: The Martin Luther Christian University received a three-year funding from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi, for a project entitled “Alcohol use among adolescent tribals in three corners of India” under the Principal Investigator, Dr. R. Jennifer War.
The two main objectives of the project are to estimate prevalence of alcohol use, psychiatric morbidity and related risk factors among 11-19 year old tribals in three states of India and to conduct a feasibility study of the NIMHANS Life Skills Education model in forestalling alcohol use amongst tribal adolescents.
To implement the second objective of the project, the research team organised focus group discussions with community members in Nongrah on November, 2019 and in Mawlynrei on Febrauary 2020 to ascertain the need and relevance of the workshop.
Three Life Skills Workshop were conducted from December 2019 to March 2020 for the youth of Nongrah and, Mawlynrei, East Khasi Hills. Around 65 youths between 15 to19 years of age attended the workshop.
Community members also participated in the workshops as rapporteurs and observers. The workshop was facilitated by trained faculty from the Department of Psychology, Social Work, Allied Health Sciences, and Centre for GENDER of MLCU.
The youths were given extensive training on motivation, self-awareness, self-esteem, high risk behaviour, attitudes towards failures, assertiveness, nutrition, self-improvement, and social responsibility. The pedagogy employed were group discussions, reflections, role plays, videos, and games.
Assertiveness when dealing with peer pressure and negative influences and the dangers of adventurous, high-risk lifestyles and sensation seeking behaviours were highlighted. Two follow-ups, one after six months and another after twelve months will be conducted to ascertain the effectiveness of this workshop.
Speaking at the inaugural function, the Secretary of Mawlynrei, Mr W. Kharshohnoh emphasised on the importance of providing such workshops especially for the youth who are leaders of tomorrow. Speaking at the valedictory session, one of the participants stated that the workshop had been very useful and that they would share all the information garnered with their friends and family.
