Following the release of the top 100 ideas last week, Nile Breweries Limited organised a webinar for the top 40 students whose ideas made it to the next round on 26th October 2021. The move was aimed at enabling university students to firm up their ideas through a two-hour masterclass with Professor Bill DeJong, the Director of Research and Evaluation at Tufts University School of Medicine in the United States of America.
Speaking at the webinar, Clare Asiimwe, the NBL Sustainability Manager re-echoed NBL’s commitment to Smart Drinking which falls in line with the World Health Organisation target of reduction of harmful use of alcohol by 10% in every country by 2021. “While we have made some progress, we know that we are not yet were we would like to be. We are therefore focusing on moving beyond awareness raising to driving real change in our company and the communities in which we live and work through evidence-based interventions like this Smart drinking challenge,” Asiimwe continued.
Prof. Dejong who is also one of the judges for this competition highlighted the need for students to have ideas and behavioural change campaigns which are realistic and doable. “In designing your idea, people have got to believe that this is a behaviour that they can adopt. This can only be done if there is self-efficacy where college/university students feel confident in themselves to become the change that they want to see,” Prof. Bill continued. The students were further taken through the steps in designing a proper complete strategy which involves doing a thorough analysis, strategy development, campaign development and testing, campaign implementation and monitoring, evaluation and program improvement.
Prof. Dejong emphasized the need for students to develop strategies that will help protect another person who has had too much to drink. This can best be assessed through Knowledge(recognising the signs of a possible alcohol overdose), Attitudes and beliefs(Choosing to intervene), Perceived outcomes(Knowing that you might be thanked for having saved a friend), social norms(everyone else would want me to intervene), Personal norms(this is the right thing to do), Behavioural skills(demonstrating how to prevent someone from drinking too much) and Perceived Behavioural control(Knowing that you have the ability to take control of the situation.
University students in attendance were grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the webinar and promised to improve their ideas before the 31/10/2021 when the top 15 ideas for the inter University smart drinking challenge will be announced. “I would like to thank Prof. Bill for the comprehensive presentation, his comprehensive analysis on underage drinking has given insights on how I can improve my idea,” said Donald Alinaitwe from Kampala International University.