ABORIGINAL elder Harry Nannup’s youth was governed by his alcohol addiction, which started when he was 14.
“I didn’t think I was ever going to be a father, I drank so much” he said to a room of policemen, councillors and local school teachers at Thursday morning’s Our Mandurah Community Youth Alcohol Strategy launch.
He shared his experiences as an aboriginal youth in a hostile community that offered him no help and instead pushed him to the fringe and displaced him from his family.
“It’s natural that I took to alcohol, to block all that out… to get rid of the hurt.”
His dad told him “you’ve gotta knock out the drinking, if you want to have a family.”
Mr Nannup was glad to see people are more concerned for each other these days.
“I just hope this group of people can help the young people of today, and I don’t just mean my people, the Noongar people, but all the young people coming here [to Mandurah] today,” he said.
The youth alcohol strategy is expected to run over three years, with a focus on reducing under-age drinking, promoting alcohol free events, and increasing community awareness of the problems related to alcohol.
The council also hopes to let parents know about new laws that made it illegal to supply alcohol to underage youths in homes without their parent’s consent.
The City of Mandurah worked with a number of groups to get the strategy in place, including the police, Palmerston, the South Metropolitan Population Health Unit, and School Drug Education and Road Aware, and enlisted Professor John Toumbourou from Deakin University to provide data they can base the strategy off.
As the chief of not-for-profit Communities That Care, Mr Toumbourou said they were trying to bring evidence-based support to communities around the country, including Mandurah.
Mayor Marina Vergone said: “I’m looking forward to seeing a change from alcohol being associated with anti-social behaviour as in graffiti, violence, self-harm.
“I believe it should be a nice social drinking, with respectful celebrations… I don’t know where this culture came from where you’ve just got to shoot everything back until you vomit.”
She said not only did underage drinking affect the young people engaging in it, but it could also impact families, relationships, the community, and perceptions of the area.
