Donald Lyn Frost once said, ‘Drugs take you to hell, disguised as heaven.’ What is substance abuse? Substance abuse also known as drug abuse, is a patterned use of a drug in which the youth consumes the substance with methods which are harmful to themselves. The most familiar reasons for this are boredom, stress, relationship problems, teenage rebellions, and more. The mind altering substance that youth can abuse include alcohol, prescribed drugs, inhalers, depressants, etc. Teens who abuse drugs are more likely to struggle with addiction later in life and have permanent and irreversible brain damage. Other negative effects of teen drug abuse are emotional problems; drug abuse can cause or make emotional problems like anxiety, mood swings, suicidal thoughts, etc. Behavioural issues; recent study says that teens who abuse drugs can engage in delinquent behaviours such as fighting and stealing. Additionally, there are consequences for family, community and society. 

Overcoming addiction is not going to happen unless you think about the change. Keep reminding yourself of the reasons why you want to change. Ask questions to yourself. Ask if there is anything preventing you from changing? Consider the things that are important to you. I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy, I’m telling you it’s going to be worth it. Just believe in yourself. Thank you. 

Group I- Akansha, Akshaya, Ekta, Reia, Revanth, Rishi

2.PRESSURES OF 24-HOURS SOCIAL NETWORKING

How many hours do you spend everyday, in front of computers ? Let us say…. 3 hours? Out of this 3 hours , 2 hours is spent on social networking . So, is it a 5 year old kid who spends such a long time on social networking ?  I say NO to this statement .  So who is it? Yes. It is the youngsters.

As we all know , youngsters have a lot to study . So, in that case they should also have adequate amount of sleep. Teenagers need more sleep when compared to adults. Let it be India or Netherlands, a new study has found that teenagers who engage with social media for longer durations are damaging their sleep. In addition to this, the youngsters are increasing their risk of anxiety and depression.

Today, the youngsters are not really careful while using social media. They snap pictures of themselves and post it in social medias, like Facebook and Instagram .This is one of the action that would affect the privacy of a person. According to me, social networking can affect one’s privacy. With so much sharing going on , issues over privacy will always be a big concern . Sharing too much with the public can open all sorts of problems, that sometimes can never be undone .

We’ll all love to have a lot of friends and followers , right ?At times we tend to rack up a lot of friends and followers and that can lead to lots of bloated new feeds with too much content we are not interested in. Social networking can also reduce family closeness . Social networking can pave way to laziness, procrastination and distraction , which can hinder the performance of the students in examinations .

Being a youngster , I know it is extremely difficult to avoid using social media . But, it is possible to reduce the number of hours you spend on social networking . You need to be extremely careful about what you post in social media . You should also make sure that you don’t get addicted to it .

 

Thank You

3. HUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT

Unemployment of Youth - India and Netherlands

BY : Dennis, Annapoorane, Sai Sabarish, Jeshee, Karishmaa

Good Afternoon everyone. I am representing class IX-D. We believe that unemployment amidst youth is a common and a pertinent issue in India and Netherlands.

India  :

One of the major hindrances in the growth of our country is unemployment. According to the statistics, the Youth Unemployment Rate of India is 12.90 %. Unemployment has now become such a dangerous economic, social and political problem that it has endangered the security of our country. The law and order situation in the country has also been affected. But a true and a developed country should eradicate unemployment. Economists have also traced back the main causes of unemployment. They are :

1. Caste System

2. Slow economic growth

3. Increase in population

4. Slow growth of Industrialization

Unemployment amongst youth have certainly transformed a large section of our society into a liability. Due to rising unemployment, the nation is merely wasting its human resource or is not able to unleash its benefits entirely. The unemployment among the youth in India is commonly associated with various problems like high crime rate among the youth and riots. The youths have remained unemployed because of various social challenges that face the youths.

But our Government has acknowledged this matter and have made some adequate steps for the eradication of youth unemployment. These include :

● The introduction of National Career Service Scheme

   

  ● The NREGA act of 2005

● Employment Guarantee Scheme and the Employment Assurance Scheme

● Development of organized public and private sectors

Therefore, the overall development of the country has been hindered by the unemployment cases. Steps are to be taken further to eradicate this social evil which has persisted  for long.

Netherlands  :

Now, we move onto Netherlands where the Youth Unemployment rate is 7.90 % which is comparatively better than India. Some of the steps taken by the government to tackle this issue are :

● Implementation of Youth Guarantee Scheme on a national level

● Formulation of Dutch initiatives to prevent and tackle youth unemployment.

● Assessment and continuous improvement of schemes.

Though the Youth Unemployment rate is low, it still has to be reduced to improve the society and in the process, eradicating all other social evils from the country. Some of the root causes of Youth Unemployment are :

● Overvalued stock exchange which ultimately leads to lower export demand

● An inflow of foreign workers

● Self-employed workers

● Massive employment of workers which leads to less work/person which ultimately leads to the

company firing a major portion of the labour force..

In the Netherlands, we have observed that even though the unemployment rate is lower when compared, the effected are long term and are expected to continue until major government actions are taken into consideration. However there are some massive benefits of unemployment. The unemployment benefits are paid out as 75% of your average salary in the past 12 months for 2 months. It can stay from an initial 3 months to a maximum of 3 years and 2 months. In this time the citizen should look for a job and constantly show proof of applications to the UWV WERKbedrijf or the administrative office for employed persons

  

  As of now, unemployment is a major problem for the Netherlands and other European countries as well. Economists are constantly looking towards solutions for the problem that remains. The future youth must thus remain vigilant to find solutions for a better tomorrow

Thank you!

 

 

These are the common bullying issues happened both in India and the Netherlands:

• India,

❖ Radha (name changed), 12, was often patronized for being a quota student and manhandled by her strict convent school seniors. Her worst nightmare soon became a reality when she was cornered in the school bathroom and bullied for being poor and unhygienic. She and her family were called names; and to top it all, she was forced to lick her seniors’ shoes. A few days later, Radha committed suicide.

• Netherlands,

Government of India in order to stop bullying has enacted a regulation called “UGC Regulations on Curbing the Menace of Ragging in Higher Education Institutions, 2009” which has been applied to all the colleges or higher education institutions

➢ There are some steps which the government of India ahs taken to eradicate bulling in schools and colleges.

➢ Anti-bullying Laws in Colleges and Schools:

• Government of India in order to stop bullying has enacted a regulation called “UGC Regulations on Curbing the Menace of Ragging in Higher Education Institutions, 2009”which has been applied to all the colleges or higher education institutions.

 

 

 

♣ The average age to enter into such a commercial sexual slavery is thirteen.

♣  According to some estimates, approximately 80% of trafficking involves sexual exploitation, and 19% involves labor exploitation.

♣ The International Labour Organization estimates that women and girls represent the largest share of forced labor victims with 11.4 million trafficked victims (55%) compared to 9.5 million (45%) men.

♣ In an effort to ensure ending sex trafficking receives the attention it deserves at the highest levels, Equality Now launched a campaign on 28 July 2017 calling on the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to ensure sex trafficking was addressed as its own distinct form of human trafficking in its review of the Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons (GPOA).

 

• Talk to victims and survivors 

• Use the international legal definition of trafficking in persons as provided and internationally agreed upon under the Palermo Protocol - the leading international treaty to combat trafficking in persons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Imagine that you’re bullied and shut out everyday. You are different, at least you’re treated differently. Because you are a boy, who loves girly things like makeup, you only have female friends,  You are bisexual and almost nobody appreciates this.You don’t want to live anymore, because you can’t be yourself. You are not only bullied in real life, but also online. You are so depressed that you want to commit suicide. You’ve planned your suicide, you’ve talked about this with your best friend, she says if you kill yourself that you’re not alone, she will be there too. On an early sunday morning you commit suicide. 

This is a real story. This is the story of the Dutch boy Tharukshan, he died on 8 of January 2017 at the age of 15. 

These things happen to much. We think that too many people get bullied, not only in the Netherlands but all around the world. In India, 33 percent of the children is bullied. In the Netherlands 10 percent gets bullied everyday and 45 percent gets sometimes bullied. 

The Dutch government also thinks that these numbers are too high, so the schools had to make a safety plan in 2006. This safety plan consists of a physical security part and a social security part. There is also a law about punishments. When there is an extreme insult or maltreatment, there can be spoken of a punishable fact. With this law the people who punish, will be prosecuted. 

In our school we’ve got mediators and counselors. If you are having an argument with someone you can go to the mediators. They will help you dealing with this problem. The mediators are children from our school, they get special lessons for learning to help people dealing with arguments. This helps real often.

The counselors on our school can help you dealing with a stressful situation, that you’ve at home. For example if your parents are divorced and you feel frustrated or lonely. The counselors are adults and they’ve got a special training for this job. 

In India they have anti-bullying laws, like the “UGC Regulations on Curbing the Menace of Ragging in Higher Education Institutions, that was made in 2009.  

In this law is stated that bullying is forbidden in colleges and any schools in India and that bullying must be stopped. People who are bullying, can be suspended or arrested. 

A large part of the children who are not bullied, are either bullies or they help the bullies. A small group of children is not involved in bullying at all, but almost everyone is more or less involved in bullying. If they do not help the bullies, they will often become victims of bullying. Some victims of heavy bullying commit suicide, all around the world.  

There is also cyberbullying. Cyber bullying is online abuse. It’s makes people feel inferior and intimidated. Cyberbullying appears on social media like instagram, facebook, whatsapp and snapchat. Cyberbullying is a growing problem. 1 in 10 children are bullied online. A lot of parents look at the messages their children get and send, and look what they upload for example like what pictures they upload on instagram, so a lot of parents keep an eye on their children's’ online behaviour. But sometimes it goes wrong and pictures of them nude, sexting, can be seen by others. 

Radha is 12, she was often patronized for being a quota student (that is a student who can’t afford its study so the charges are paid by the school or the government) and she was manhandled by her strict convent school seniors. Her worst nightmare soon became a reality when she was cornered in the school bathroom and bullied for being poor and unhygienic. She and her family were called names; and to top it all, she was forced to lick her seniors’ shoes. A few days later, Radha committed suicide.

As Benjamin Disraeli, prime minister of Britain in the 19’s century, once said:

COURAGE IS FIRE, AND BULLYING IS SMOKE.