27 Jun 2016

Some organisations across the world are on their feet to fight alcohol consumption among children and the youth.

Botswana Substance Abuse Support Network (BOSASNET), through the Southern Africa Alcohol Policy Alliance (SAAPA), recently joined the world in a campaign to create awareness about how the alcohol industry worked to target as well as brainwash children and youth.

Counsellor at BOSASNET, Ms Portia Diteko said during a recent media briefing that research had shown that there was a link between alcohol marketing and alcohol consumption, hence the need for raising awareness on such.

She said creative alcohol marketing influenced and affected children in different ways, noting that it could start with the child liking the advertisement itself, then the wish to imitate the behaviour of the characters and finally they develop the belief that acting like the characters in the commercials would bring about rewards and positive consequences.

She said alcohol marketing was driven by the strategy to offer alcohol as facilitator for young people in their process of forming an identity and that it was the reason alcohol adverts often used lot of humor, interesting imaging, ideas and quotes.

Therefore, Ms Diteko said SAAPA Botswana was asked to raise awareness about the link between alcohol marketing and alcohol consumption.

She said they were also tasked to engage the media on the issue, while a group of youth had already been trained on the topic.

“We think sensitising people about the link between alcohol consumption and alcohol marketing will make people curious to start discussing the issues and to learn more about the facts. In Botswana we need collectiveness and everyone to say it is my responsibility,” said Ms Diteko.

Meanwhile, SAAPA Botswana acting director, Ms Prisca Mokgadi said as a lobby organisation, they looked at and study the country’s alcohol policy and see what gaps and challenges were there, at the same time seeing how best they could help government implement some of the guidelines in the policy. Ends