Kachin Youths Distributed Anti-Drug Postcards
June 29, 2005

The Kachin Post

Over 10,000 anti-drug postcards had been handed out in major cities and towns in Kachin States and northern Shan State on the International Days Against Drugs Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, June 26. The postcards were delivered by hundreds of Kachin youths by youth-to-youth tactic.

The activity was organized by Kachin youth members from Education and Economic Development for Youth, EEDY, which is a program under the Kachin Independence Organization’s Youth Affairs Committee.

Leader of KIO’s Youth Affairs Committee, Maj Sumlut Gun Maw said that the goal of this activity is to educate younger generation to eschew from consuming narcotic drugs.

“Not friend! Enemy,” printed in Kachin, Burmese and English on the anti-drugs postcards. The reddish-dark color postcard depicts a caricature of stop sign on poppy flower with the logo of EEDY. Gun Maw said that Youth Affairs Committee spent over 500,000 kyat (US $500) for this activity.

EEDY members distributed postcards in over 20 cities and towns including Burma’s capital Yangon and second capital Mandalay. More than 50 percent of Kachin youths living in Kachin State capital Myitkyina are becoming the victims of heroin and narcotic drugs as the negligence of Burmese authority to crackdown on local drug traffickers, according to Kachin youths. Many youths are becoming drug addicts due to rampant of unemployment, cheap price, easy to buy and ubiquitous of drug peddlers.

Education and Economic Development for Youth has been conducting capacity building training for Kachin youths and university students.