The 45-day long campaign on ‘Substance Abuse and Awareness about Rehabilitation’ by the students of the Centre for Studies in Journalism and Mass Communication (CSJMC), Dibrugarh University has concluded.
The campaign that began mid-May till 29th June was packed with four major on-ground events alongside a digital campaign that will continue to run till the end of July.
The campaign had events including a public survey on the awareness of rehabilitation, social experiment that caught the crowd off guard, a grassroots community engagement with the tea tribes at Sealkotee Tea Estate, talk show and closed with a musical show that threw light on the lack of sensitivity and the importance of a dialogue that continues to be absent in our everyday conversations.
What came out from the findings and the social experiment is lack of awareness about rehabilitation and shame around simply looking for help. The social experiment pulled deprecating reactions from the public wherein two student actors played the role of drug addicts without the public knowing.
The central event that garnered appreciation and attention was ‘Nazariya’, a talk show in partnership with News & Media portal Dibrugarh 24X7 with a diverse yet distinct panel including the Superintendent of Police, senior social activists and educators, Psychiatrist and rehabilitation facilitators. The episode aired on 26th June to mark International Day Against Drugs and Illicit Trafficking.
The campaign finale was marked on a musical note with an evening gig named ‘Coral Strings’ that was held at the Dibrugarh University Campus to spread the message far and wide. Local independent artists who also were students, lent their voice to further the message of normalising when looking for help.
As part of their assignment, the students of the Centre for Studies in Journalism and Mass Communication, Dibrugarh University specialising in Public Relations, have been using their subject of study of communications to bring difficult conversations around social causes to the table within Dibrugarh district.
The month-long campaign aimed at offering an open space for respectful conversations around substance abuse and the address the reasons behind the taboo around seeking rehabilitation and aims to occupy a significant place in the public consciousness for the future.