In an educational lecture for students, the Secondary School of Metal Working launched the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Sarajevo Canton’s campaign to prevent and suppress drug abuse, “Sharpen Your Mind – Keep Substance at a Distance”. The Campaign is part of the Strategy against Drug Abuse in the Sarajevo Canton and represents a continuation of the same-named campaign from 2024, which was awarded the international PRO PR Globe for the best socially responsible campaign.
The Secondary School of Metal Working hosted the first of five educational events that will be organised in secondary schools in Sarajevo Canton. During these events, experts from the Addiction Diseases Institute and police inspectors from the Police Directorate talk to students about the health and legal consequences of drug use. Dr. Almedina Tanović and Inspector Amer Mulić held today’s lectures. After the lectures, the K9 team demonstrated its skills – service dogs specialised in narcotic detection. The police dog and its handler demonstrated how flawlessly it finds hidden drugs, how it can detect them even in traces invisible to the human eye, and how, with its handler’s help, it can ignore external factors and perform the job it was trained for. A trained police working dog can precisely search a space in just a few minutes that would take roughly 20 people hours to manually search.
At the end of the event, the students participated in a knowledge check through an interactive quiz where they won valuable prizes.
The Minister of Internal Affairs of the Sarajevo Canton, Admir Katica, emphasised the importance of making the right decisions and decisively standing up against drugs.
“The police’s job is not just to seize drugs and make arrests. Our job, as well as society’s as a whole, is to protect you and save your lives. You are important to us – that’s why I am launching our campaign here, today. I hope that today you will learn something new, apply this knowledge, and pass it on to your friends, because, in the end, we all bear the responsibility to influence and contribute so that your answer to drugs at a crucial moment is NO,” Minister Katica stated.
The Minister for Education and Upbringing, Naida Hota-Muminović, recalled that they have extensively worked on raising the level of care for every student and every family over the past years.
“It’s very important for me during these turbulent times, in a world that changes rapidly and circumstances where young people have access to so many things, that we work together, in a synchronised, strategic, and well-designed manner, and that everyone in the chain, including schools, works on preventing, informing, and raising awareness of our students about all harmful consequences, and strengthening their character,” said Minister Hota Muminović.
The Minister of Health, Enis Hasanović, emphasised the importance of launching the Counselling Centre for Minors.
“When speaking about an issue of drug and psychoactive substances abuse among children and youth, it is not enough to just stop at warnings, prevention, and prohibitions. In addition to all of that, we must have a system that will admit these children and recognise and solve the problem in time. This is why we joined this Strategy and launched the Council Centre for Minors, which is available to them all the time and where they can turn without a referral or a prior visit to a family medical clinic. We have had 197 minors in the Counselling Centre who turned to us for the first time and came for help. We have realised a total of 139 group family therapies, and a total of 727 children and youths have gone through these group activities,” Minister Hasanović stated.
At the end of the educational program, the former student of the Secondary School of Metal Work addressed the current students. He is today a pilot in the first Helicopter Unit of the Sarajevo Canton Ministry of Internal Affairs, Fuad Brčić.
“I used to attend this school as well. I had my dreams, plans, goals, and today I have an opportunity to do the job I dreamed about, to be a helicopter pilot for the Sarajevo Canton Ministry of Internal Affairs. This did not come overnight; I achieved this through learning, hard work, sacrifice, and persistence. That’s why I want to tell you that it is not important where you come from or what your current circumstances are. It is important what kind of decisions you make and in which direction you want to go. You don’t all have to have the same dreams, or know what you want to become right away. But you must believe you can build a good future for yourself.”
The campaign “Sharpen Your Mind – Keep Substance at a Distance” will last until the end of 2026, and it will include primary school students in the Sarajevo Canton. A literary and video competition is planned for them. In addition, the campaign will be realised through a combination of digital and traditional advertising, as well as the promotion of preventive messages in public spaces, including public transport vehicles, bus, tram, and trolleybus stops, etc.
The campaign will also be represented through police work in the community; in this way, police officers will visit all schools in the Sarajevo Canton and distribute promotional materials indicating how parents can recognise drug consumption in children and why drug consumption is harmful and illegal. They will also distribute posters with contact details of the Counselling Centre for Minors who are experimenting with drugs.
The Counselling Centre for Minors is located within the JU Zavod za bolesti ovisnosti KS and operates daily in two shifts at Nahorevska 173, phone: 033/257-771.
