Health Ministry Launches ‘Holiday Don’t Drink and Drive Campaign’ for Safe Christmas

The Ministry of Health and Wellness (MoHW), through the National Drug Abuse Control Council (NDACC), wants Belizeans to have a safe Christmas by the launch of their “Holiday Don’t Drink and Drive Campaign.” The initiative kicked off today with officers from NDACC, community health workers, Police and the Traffic department distributing flyers with information to the public in Corozal. NDACC Director, Esner Vellos spoke to Love News about the importance of the campaign. 

Esner Vellos, Director, National Drug Abuse Control Council – Ministry of Health and Wellness: “The whole objective of this campaign is to ensure that we provide the general population with the adequate information that we need so that we can make the right choices in life specifically when it comes to the consumption of alcohol. Our statistics show that alcohol is one of the most consumed substances in our country not only by adults but also by young people. So that is the reason why for us at the Ministry of Health and Wellness specifically the component of wellness is ensuring that the population gets that information. And talking about that information it’s not only specific to drunk driving because yes drunk driving as we have all seen throughout the course of the year and specifically during these last few weeks the immense number of traffic accidents that have been happening in our country so it’s very important for us to ensure that the population has that information so that they can make the right choices in life so that we are not only protecting the lives of the consumers or the drivers in this case but also protecting the life of every single individual who is in a specific vehicle during this time of the year because what’s more sad than to have a traffic accident during this Christmas season ? Losing lives, losing children specifically during the time when we should be having fun with our families but clean safe fun right ? So the Ministry of Health is ensuring that the population gets that adequate information so that we don’t only reduce the amount of traffic accidents happening in our country but also looking at what are the other effects that alcohol consumption causes in our society such as domestic violence, such as child abuse also in terms of the mental health effect that it happens when individuals consume alcohol. So whereas this specific campaign targets drug driving it’s not only about drunk driving it’s about all the effects that alcohol causes on any individual and that’s the message that the Ministry of Health wants to convey. That we need to ensure that we reduce consumption so that we will be able to have a happy Christmas.”

Traffic stop campaigns will be conducted across the country for the next two weeks. Vellos stresses the importance of reducing drunk driving during the holidays. 

A series of public service announcements on the campaign will be aired on radio, TV, and social media platforms throughout the holiday season.