A different way to help youth

MENTOR Week began yesterday in an attempt to raise awareness and discourage the use of addictive substances among students by helping to strengthen their self-esteem.

The programme, which will run until Saturday is an organised government and private initiative aimed at promoting Mentor programmes, a modern approach to health education via mobile education units, which will travel to schools around the island in the coming week.

The Education Ministry believes such educational reform would further contribute to the prevention of drug use and the aim is to spread Mentor programmes to all schools.

Round Table Cyprus established the Mentor Mobile Units in 1996 and today the effort is supported by clubs such as the Round Table, Ladies Circle, 41 Club, Tangent Club, the Cyprus Anti-Drug Association, the Ministry of Education and Culture, and the Ministry of Health.

Two units are in operation for each district of Cyprus, one at the primary education level and one at the secondary education level, and each operates in cooperation with the Ministry.

Efforts to enhance the effectiveness of Mentor programmes are ongoing and include creating more mobile units, improving existing ones, and promoting programmes to parents.

The 2006 “Mentor Week” is being organised under the auspices of First Lady Photini Papadopoulou, who addressed the opening ceremony last night at the Presidential Palace to mark the delivery of two new mobile units.
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The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.