An awareness campaign for troubled youth

Teenage Temptations-2013’, an awareness campaign to reach out to the youth in distress through their lecturers and professors is being planned from September 26 to October 31, by a Psychologist Dr C Veerender. He detailed the reasons for the noble endeavour and the plans for his month-long campaign.

The programme is designed by ‘Spoorthy’, and ‘You and Me’. Talking about the awareness campaign which has been conducted for the past seven years, Dr Veerender felt that looking at the magnitude and multitude of crimes happening in the country, especially in Andhra Pradesh with respect to jilted lovers attacking their former partners and parents murdering their own children in the name of honour killings, it was high time something was done to get things under control.

He said that the youth pursuing their studies shouldn’t disturb their own, or others’ lives. This sort of behavior is very evident in the various acid-attacks, brutal rapes and murders, as it leaves families in a state of shock. He felt that students need to come out and openly talk about their relationships with him and other psychologists to get timely help, instead of resorting to such extreme measures. He also felt the same about parents who fail to understand what’s going on in their child's life, especially during their teenage years.

Veerender said that there are many parents, who lack the skills of understanding and tackling their children and must come out openly and get psychological help in handling special situations like a 'break-up between teenagers' and other issues concerning love, friendship and affection.

Unlike last year where a rally was taken out from BHEL to Hanumakonda to create awareness about how to handle youth emotionally, this year, Dr Veerender would cover engineering colleges and arts colleges, where he would be speaking to lecturers and professors on understanding the mindset of students and solve their psychological issues arising due to various kinds of relationships. On October 30 and 31, the doctor is planning to conduct a workshop for the faculties called 'Know Your Students'.

Last year, he had covered 5 Districts in AP. However, due to the political uncertainty, he has limited his campaign only to the city this year.