You may have watched our video on the Get home safe project. A new report gives some of the stats around the problem. They are really shocking. RUTV reporter Matthew Mpahlwa goes into detail to bring you more on this story.
It is probably uncontroversial to state that all university campuses struggle with containing and controlling alcohol consumption by their students, since the age at which students first enter such institutions is an age of freedom and experimentation, where young people have the opportunity to test the limits previously set by parents and schools. This story attempts to address this gap by reporting on a survey of alcohol usage patterns at Rhodes University (in Grahamstown), the smallest tertiary institution in South Africa, with an annual enrolment of just under 6000 students. This story provides a brief overview of strategies which the University has adopted in recent years in an attempt to control alcohol usage and alcohol abuse, as well as describing the local context, which is also relevant to student drinking behaviour. While the level of drinking at Rhodes University is possibly no higher than that at any other University in South Africa, it does have a rather undesirable reputation as the “drinking university”, and the reason for this is twofold: firstly, the drinking behaviour is highly visible, because of the size of the town, and because of the location of many off-campus pubs and bars near to the university. This means that Rhodes students pursue their after-hours relaxation in a very concentrated, small area like Rhodes University.
As a result of this situation, the Dean of Students Office initiated the Get Home Safe Project, to serve as safety net for students to arrive home safely after long hours of drinking. They will be driven home by student volunteers who are on stand -by on all night. During week days they operate from Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 10:00 pm to 3:00 am in the morning.
For more information on the Get Home Safe project you can visit the Dean of Students website using the following link : http://www.ru.ac.za/deanofstudents
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