Department of Health organizes 3 days Adolescent health workshop

The first day of the 3 days workshop, from 21 August to 23 August, organized by the Department of Health, Central Tibetan Administration, dealing with building life skills for adolescent development and well being was attended by Chief guest as Health Kalon, Choekyung Wangchuk, Tsegyal Chukya Dranyi, Health Secretary, Jampa Phuntsok, joint secretary of the Department of Health, Uma Sharma, Ritu Sharma and Meenu Agarwal, trainers from Expression India. Other participants of the workshop included Councillors, teachers and staff nurses from 21 different schools, and 12 nurses from different Tibetan settlements, summing upto a total of around 50 participants.

Health Kalon, Choekyong Wangchuk, during his inaugural speech

In his inaugural speech Health Kalon mentioned the rising issue of generating from negligence in teenagers during the stage of their adolescence. “It is our duty to uphold and to guide teenagers and stress on them the reason as to why they should be knowing about adolescent health”.

“Like a seed that needs nourishment to help it grow into a strong tree, we too must help boys and girls at this age to overcome adolescent health problems through guidance and awareness so that they move onto a strong and bright future.”

“Parenting skills during the stage of adolescence bears significance too. Teenagers at this age tend to be curious about a lot of things and sometimes due to negligence strays to the wrong path. This is when parenting skills are required to teach and guide them to the right path.”

Health Secretary Tsegyal Chukya said that adolescent health has become an important issue that cannot be neglected these days. “A lot of health problems arise from negligence during the stage of adolescence in teenagers. We must work together on finding out how such problems come up and find out ways to counter such problems. This workshop should be a stepping stone in lowering and hence working towards eradicating the health problems emitting from adolescent heath negligence.”

Uma Sharma, Expression India trainer, provided a brief introduction to Expression India and its objectives. She mentioned that the organization values and cherishes the partnership with the Department of Health, CTA, and hopes to put joint effort in promoting adolescent health values.

The 3 days workshop entails interactions, brainstorming, powerpoint presentations, videos, group discussions and role play related to topics on “Building life skills for adolescent Development and wellbeing”.