‘Drink wise… neutralise before you drive’
A group of final-year Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) students at the University of the West Indies, Mona, are planning to launch “Detoxified”, a public education campaign to encourage detoxing before, during or after the consumption of alcohol.
Under the theme “Drink wise…neutralise before you drive”, the campaign will focus especially on persons who drive, including university students, hopefully to reduce the rate of road fatalities related to drunk driving.
Sereta Thompson, a member of the group told the Jamaica Observer that one of the aims of the project is to increase the number of detox bars at social events.
“We believe that just giving someone a bottle of water at an event after they have had way too much to drink is not enough. There needs to be more consideration for the lives of others by persons who have these social events,” Thompson said, adding that the group was currently targeting university events where alcoholic beverages are served.
“We have been speaking with representatives of the UWI Mona Guild of Students to have stationed detox bars at this year’s UWI Carnival as well as at Integration Thursdays,” Thompson said.
The official launch for the campaign is to be held in March. Thompson says that the launch coincides with the climax of the University social events calendar.
“We thought what better time to launch a campaign that promotes this healthy habit than the week before UWI Carnival and all the end of semester parties that will be happening at that time of the year,” she said.
“Detoxified”, is the first campaign of its kind to be undertaken by the group of final- year students who plan to use social media in a big way to get their message across.
“We have a Facebook page with information on detoxing and how to detox in the absence of a detox bar. We also have a Youtube account and we are currently working on a blog for the campaign,” Thompson said. “It’s not that we want to take the fun out of drinking but we want persons to become more aware of detoxing, as well as how to do so properly in the event that there is no detox bar available at the event.”
