This afternoon the National Drug Abuse Control Council (NDACC) launched and after school prevention program entitled "You Got Game." The program will have 60 students from 6 high schools in the city go through a 5 week development program. For two days every week participants will focus their energy at a particular sport in this case basketball as well as have them learn coping skills to handle pressures to use drugs. NDACC's Eldred Neal explains.
Eldred Neal,
"One aspect as we are seeing out here is that we have the launching of the basketball game and the other part is a life skills session. Students for the next four weeks will be interacting on us. On Tuesday they will be doing life skills session from three to four and we will be using the City Center as the Sports Council is a partner in this as well. On Thursdays we will be playing basketball, And1 style, at four different locations in the country.
We are taking students from schools and bringing them together to work as ambassador for us to then take this game into their schools and outside of their schools to different areas that they will be playing. Students will not only be playing in their school vicinity but in other participating school's vicinity and this is something new because some kids would never leave from EP Yorke area to go and play in the Yabra area, although they would live in the area. They would go to school and hang with the boys in their school and never return to their neighborhoods to play. So we are just trying to lengthen that attitude of sharing and team work and the life skills session will be addressing that; building individual assets, building relationships, positive choices, making decisions."
The program will run for 5 weeks ending with a championship game. A major sponsor for the program is the U.S. embassy that's contributing equipment valued at $4,300.
