Students cautioned against violence

The National Chairman of the International Prisons Chaplains Association (IPCA), Ghana, Rev. Steve Mensah, has cautioned students against engaging in violent activities in schools.

Rather, he said they should obey rules and regulations and endeavour to engage school authorities on issues they had misgivings about.

Rev. Mensah said this when the association took its crime talk programme to the Presbyterian Senior High School (SHS), Osu in Accra.

The programme aimed at sensitising the students to desist from engaging in criminal activities that could land them in jail.  

Composition

The association, which is made up of ordained ministers and other Christian professionals has already visited some schools to educate students about drug abuse, violent student activities and other anti-social vices.

Students

“IPCA has had a consultative status at the United Nations since 2014.

This means that we are very influential, at the United Nations level.

The idea of IPCA, or the objective, is to reach out to prisoners first, and then their families also,” he said.

The association, he said, educated young people to avoid going to prison, since one of the things it realised was the large number of young people languishing in prison.

“Sometimes, when we go and we see such young people, we are very saddened,” he said.

Rev. Mensah said there was a need to reach out to young people, especially students, to warn them of the dangers ahead so that they did not take things for granted.

Tools

“Recently, we heard about a student stabbing another.

That was so unfortunate.

There are certain tools or equipment you shouldn't send to school as a student,” he said.

Rev. Mensah said the association had, so far, covered 12 SHS in the anti-crime talk and that it was going to extend the programme throughout the whole country to educate students on avoiding the things they took for granted that could land them in jail.

“Our prisons are too full of people, and we don't want more young people to go and add to those numbers.

That is our aim,” he said.

He added that before the end of the month, both the Central and the Eastern regions would be covered.

A retired educationist, Dr Angela Tena Mensah, said the youth still needed guidance to prevent them from running into problems, and for the sake of their future.

“These days, people are being called into occultism, demonstrations and even following friends to rape girls and all that;  matters relating to indiscipline.

“Even though our educational institutions are ensuring that the children or the learners go through this, we have decided to take it upon ourselves to help them,” she said.

Dr Mensah, who is also a former Secretary to the Ghana Education Service Council, said with her experience and knowledge of how learners behaved in school, the association was trying to guide them and talk about discipline to them, so that things like young learners going on demonstrations would cease.

Another speaker, Evangelist Bernard Nyarko, encouraged the students to stay clear of smoking marijuana and drug abuse.

A member of IPCA, Rev. Dr Christina Otu Lartey, advised the students to not associate themselves with people indulging in criminal activities.

The Executive Director and Founder of Dynamic Works Foundation, Gloria Cann, said the mission of IPCA was simple; to propagate the Gospel of Jesus.

DSP Issha Amidu of the Ghana Prisons Service also advised the students to stay away from engaging in crimes.