In wake of more and more people hitting the bottle at a young age, the KCBC Madyavirudha Samithi, the anti-alcohol wing of the Kerala Catholic Bishop's Council, is planning to train 1,000 young volunteers in the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese area to combat the drinking habit.
Two workshops will be held at Angamaly, on September 11, and at Kaloor on September 12, to train young men and women on how to tackle this social evil.
Fr. George Nereveettil, director of the samithi, pointed out that there had been an alarming rise in the number of young people taking to liquor and drugs. This needed to be combated collectively and for this youth power could be employed.
He said the workshops would inspire youths to drop their indifference to the spread of alcoholism and encourage them to take pro-active steps. He noted that generally society's attitude to a drinker was ‘It is none of our business,' ‘it is his/ her personal affair', or ‘why should we unnecessarily get involved in this?' The young volunteers would take up a social responsibility so that they would be emboldened to discourage drinking and offer help and medical care to alcoholics.
