WESLEY COLLEGE CELEBRATES RED RIBBON DAY

October 24, 2007

Wesley College is celebrating its ninth annual red ribbon or drug prevention week.  Today is red ribbon day. Love News spoke with coordinator Isela Garay.

Isela Garay, Coordinator of Wesley College’s red ribbon week:

“This day is very, very special and it’s the highlight of our week. We all wear red ribbons, all the teachers, all the staff, and the students and it is a symbol. The ribbon symbolizes that ribbon by ribbon, we are united for drug-free use in Belize. Today, we just finished our church service and the theme of that church service was ‘Your body is God’s temple’ and then we’ll have our parade right now and we’ll go through the streets and the children will be shouting their chants ‘Drug-free is the way to be’, ‘Look at me, I’m drug-free’, ‘Respect yourself, I’m drug-free’. This afternoon we’re having a variety show at the school and all drug-free messages will be portrayed in this competition.”

We asked Garay about the students’ attitude toward the celebration of the week.

Isela Garay, Coordinator of Wesley College’s red ribbon week:

“I can describe the atmostphere at school to be one that is very, very effective. The children are excited and the activities seem to be intriguing them and yes we had our debate and it went very well. The children seem to be soaking in the message and that is the purpose of this week, to be drug-free. And I hope that at the end of the day, when they are faced with a decision to make, I hope that they can make an informed one and eventually say ‘Look at me, I’m drug free’ and this is they way it should always be.”  

Garay also spoke of other activities for the week.

Isela Garay, Coordinator of Wesley College’s red ribbon week:

“We have a poetry competition, we have speakers coming in and that’s important. At each homeroom level, we have Mr. Lennox Lamb from NDACC and he’s doing first and second formers and then we have the police department that comes in on Thursday for one second form and for third form, we have the psychiatric department who will come to speak to them about the relationship between mental health and drugs and then on Thursday we’ll have the members of Kolbe coming in to speak to our fourth formers about the connection between drugs and violence. We also have teachers integrating their subject areas with the week. We also have students signing personal pledges and things like that. It is such an important week here at Wesley College and this week is not the end of our fight against drugs, it continues throughout the year and we do not feel that we are fighting a loosing battle. I know some people may say that and there are those out there that may say that it’s just a week and they can make the prettiest banners, they can write the best poetry, but in the end, they will still do drugs. This week is because of that acknowledgement. It is because we know that there is a problem with drugs and that is why we highlight this week.”

Isela Garay, Coordinator of Wesley College’s red ribbon week.

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