Increasing drug abuse cases among university and college students in the country has become a worrying trend spurring the need for counselling and rehabilitation services.
Egerton University’s Nakuru Town Campus has initiated a students’ counselling department which has vowed not to take any chances in the war against drug abuse among students.
Students counsellor Jane Obura while addressing peer counsellors at the campus on Tuesday said the university management has empowered the peer counsellors to help curb the problem of drug abuse, among other psychological disorders among students because they were part of the student community.
“You are part of the student community and in a better position to identify and help your colleagues hooked to drugs. This is what is expected of you by the university management,” she told the peer counsellors.
Obura added that drug abuse was the mother of other problems among students including unwanted pregnancies, Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), poor academic standards, mental disorders and poverty.
The counsellor told the fifty peer counsellors that there was a need for them to innovate new strategies for dealing with the problem including thorough interaction and socialisation with a variety of their colleagues on campus.