Dear Mayors of the European Cities,
Dear friends and delegates,
It is my great pleasure to welcome you in Cyprus and particularly in Larnaka and I wish you a pleasant stay on our island.
The problem of using addicting substances as this is faced in today’s world is a problem that concerns all the peoples and all the countries of the world. What makes it different from one country to the other is the stage at which the problem is in each country but this will soon be eliminated due to the globalisation.
KENTHEA is an all-Cyprus, non-governmental organisation that unites the entire Cyprus people, because our Members are the Municipalities’ Union, the University of Cyprus, the Youth Board, and 70 other local organisations. You will justifiably ask why we have so many organisations as members. The answer is that we believe that the problem of prevention is a social problem and its solution concerns even the last Cypriot citizen. Our duty is to organise the whole of our society and to include it in the fight for prevention based on the same philosophy and ideology in order to send the same messages.
That is why the first thing we did after establishing KENTHEA was to assign offices in the Board of Directors to the Local Government. Thus, the Municipalities’ Union and the Communities’ Union have been participating in our Committee from the start. The second thing we did was to link the Municipalities’ Union with your organisation, European Cities Against Drugs. With our initiative, we participated in the Athens Meeting in 1998 and the Cyprus’ Municipalities became members of your organisation.
That is why, we rejoice today, because we see that this collaboration is expanding and becoming fruitful and it has led to this conference.
Meetings like this reinforce our effort to contribute to this joint fight for prevention.
KENTHEA, as the main non-governmental organisation for prevention in Cyprus, implements all the community programs for prevention in collaboration with the Local Governments. We firmly believe that the role of the Local Governments in the organisation of the local society is decisive. As we examined the particularities of our country in the implementation of the programs for primary prevention, we established that the Mayor and the Municipal Council could concentrate and become the linchpin for organising all the bodies of the Municipality. That is why we proceeded to the establishment of the Municipal Prevention Teams headed by the Mayor of the city and including volunteer Members of the Municipal Councils and representatives from various bodies of the Municipality.
The KENTHEA Scientific Committee in collaboration with the MPTs drafts the Annual Action Plan that is implemented with the help of the prevention professionals and volunteers. We work in the same way with the Communities and the Community Presidents.
In addition, there are educational programs for adolescents, parents, young people, and other organised bodies that are now implemented quite successfully in Municipalities and Communities.
The Municipalities on their side have undertaken initiatives for the reinforcement of prevention by organising various events. The Municipalities of the wider area of Limassol, in collaboration with KENTHEA and local mass media organise every year a big festival on the Limassol beach. The Ayia Napa Municipality organises every year an All-Cyprus Children’s’ Forum against smoking. The Ayios Athanasios Municipality honours every year the best athletes. The Aglantzia Municipality organises an annual Youth Seminar. The Latsia Municipality organises a Workshop for Educators, the Idalion Municipality organises a Mayors’ Conference and the Aradipou and Lakatamia Municipalities organise concerts, the Larnaka Municipality an All-Cyprus Sports Event etc.
In collaboration with the Municipalities and the Cyprus Youth Board, we operate Counselling Centres for Prevention in every city and in the Idalion district. This is an accessible community form of providing immediate help to drug addicts and their parents with discretion and without bureaucratic procedures.
These are only but a few of the elements that unite us. Of course, what is important to us is that you the Municipal Lords, having realised the essence of the problem, have joined us in the fight for prevention. Moreover, the best proof of that for Cyprus is the participation of the Municipalities’ Union in KENTHEA, and for Europe, the participation of all the Municipalities in the European Cities Against Drugs organisation.
It is therefore with great pleasure that we address ourselves today to fellow combatants in this difficult fight for prevention and we wish you sincerely every success in today’s conference. May this be a new beginning for our collaboration for a United Europe free of addicting substances.

 
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