Shared Responsibilty School Project Wins Educational Award

Written by The Carrick Gazette Wednesday, 22 April 2009 00:00

Girvan drug busters

Academy scoops Young Scot award for project

PUPILS from Girvan Academy have picked up a Young Scot award 2009 for their work on a project aimed at reducing the demand for class A drugs in Scotland.

Three 16-year-olds - Marianne Logan, Francesca Capaldi and Stephen Scholes – won the community award for their role in the 'Shared Responsibility' project.

Speaking after picking up the Young Scot award, Marianne Logan said: "I am absolutely ecADVERTISEMENTstatic. It has inspired us to do more work on the project and not stop here."

The Shared Responsibility project is run by pupils at Girvan Academy with the support of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA) and the Colombian government. It aims to reduce the demand for cocaine by highlighting the impact of cocaine production on communities in Colombia through violence, corruption and environmental damage and pollution.

As project co-ordinators, Marianne, Francesca and Stephen have been responsible for driving the project within the school and have developed and adapted a number of elements for pupils within every year, including an interactive buddy scheme with a school in Colombia, short story writing and artwork depicting the damage to people, wildlife and the environment by cocaine production in Colombia, and production of a short film which highlights the impact cocaine use has on Scotland as a consumer nation.

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Cocaine's Ecocide in the Daily Mail

Written by Jonathan Green, Daily Mail Saturday, 28 February 2009 00:00

Daily Mail journalist Jonathan Green visited Colombia last December, eager to witness the environmental devastation caused by coca cultivation and cocaine production in the South American country's highly biodiverse jungles. His in-depth report was published February 28.

A few of the many evocative sections from the piece:

"The death and bloodshed meted out by the drug barons obscures the huge environmental damage being caused by the cultivation of coca. Ironically, the demand for cocaine is being fuelled by middle-class professionals – social drug users who shout their green credentials with Greenpeace stickers on their Toyota Prius hybrid cars, but are unwittingly aiding the destruction of the jungle. For every gram of cocaine bought in the West, 4.4 square metres of this diverse forest are lost forever."

"Neat rectangles have been torn out of the forest. Hectares of land that contained 750 types of tree and 1,500 species of plant have been razed to the ground. Irreplaceable trees, many more than a thousand years old, lie dead on their sides in hazy brown patches. As we dip and roll, we can see clearings where only one type of electric-green plant is growing."

Read more: Cocaine's Ecocide in the Daily Mail

VP Santos Delivers Shared Responsibility's Message in UCLA

Written by UCLA Press Office Friday, 27 February 2009 16:47

Colombian VP: Add ecological devastation to cocaine's toll

In the past, Colombian officials have tried with little success to get their message across to drug consumers about the devastating toll coca cultivation and cocaine production have taken on their country.

They have taken Colombia's victims of violence directly to Europe, where cocaine consumption is escalating, to tell their traumatic stories of kidnapping, displacement and loss of lives and limbs.
 
But that message was too strong, they were told. Don't victimize the drug consumer, they were advised, especially in Europe and in the U.S., where cocaine use is seen as a personal choice.
 
So His Excellency Francisco Santos Calderón, vice president of Colombia, a former journalist and a victim of kidnapping himself by the Medellín drug cartel, is delivering a new message that he hopes the world will take to heart: Cocaine use is killing Colombia's tropical rainforests, poisoning its rivers and land with toxic chemicals used in production of the drug, and ravaging a fragile ecosystem that sustains species of birds, amphibians, reptiles and plants that can be found nowhere else on this planet.
 

Read more: VP Santos Delivers Shared Responsibility's Message in UCLA