KUCHING: CCM-Family Service Centre’s counsellor Yap Suke Fong made a startling revelation yesterday – some students liken love to a ‘business trading’ proposition!She said some students actually believed they could buy love with money, and had no idea about commit-ments and responsibilities when they entered into a relationship.
Yap believed today’s youths were a confused lot because they were easily influenced by their peers, what they saw in movies and pornography, which was easily accessible on the Internet.
To address this problem, Yap said it was very important to guide students to lead a healthy lifestyle by holding “preventive programmes” such as educational campaigns, talks and seminars.
“These activities should be aimed especially at secondary school students, to deter them from engaging in unhealthy activities such as indulging in casual sex,” she told The Borneo Post when met at the ‘True Love Waits’ educational campaign which was held at SMK DPHA Gapor Stampin yesterday.
The event was organised by i-Youth Centre, and SMK DPHA Gapor Stampin was one of 16 secondary and primary schools the group visited since the campaign started on March 28.
Yap said there had been many instances where students told her that they never knew what “true love” was and thought that it was like a business trading proposition.
She described the campaign as a success because students had not only given positive responses but they were also excited about the whole thing.
With the slogan ‘No Premarital Sex, No Extra Marital Affairs’, some of the activities held were talks on boy-girl relationships, marriage, abortion, dating and sex. There were also video-clip presentations on topics such as abortions.
The centre’s director Timothy Bong said after each campaign, the students were each given a ‘commitment card’ to serve as reminders.
Imprinted inside the card are the words ‘Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to myself, my family, my friends, my future mate and my future children to a lifetime of purity including sexual abstinence from this day until the day I enter a marriage relationship’.
“Each student and his or her witness will have to sign this card. Part of the card will have to be given to their parents, and the other part they will keep for themselves.
“This serves as a reminder of their pledge. Parents can keep the cards and return them to their children on the day they get married,” he said.