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Teens get a wellness conference of their own

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The Navajo Health Education Program, and co-sponsor  Manuelito Chapter House, will present the, 2015 TEEN Wellness conference, Tuesday, July 28, at the Manuelito Chapter House.

This is a FREE event for all area teens. The conference takes place from 9 am – 3:30 pm, with registration beginning at 8:30 am.

The wellness conferences’ presentations include:

“Meth Awareness & Prevention”, “Negative Effects of Alcohol on the CNS(central nervous system),” “Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder,”and “Let’s make positive choices.”

Area organizations will also be on hand: MSPI(Meth Suicide Preventative Initiative), DWI Program and Juvenile Substance Abuse Crisis Center.

Senior Head Educator Frieda Naegle has been working on this year’s conference and hopes to educate area teens on the many problems that are facing them in today’s society.

“Our main goal is to target the teenagers on wellness, to reach out to them, help them focus on health, school, and, safety,” she said.

Throughout the day, teens will have the opportunity to visit booths that address the ongoing problems they face each day.

“The presenters target a certain age with a lot of prevention,” she said. “The use of methamphetamine has increased among our area young ones, fourteen to mid-school, and with proper presentation, they can learn about the deadly use of it and stay away from it. We will have the presenters speaking on these topics and hopefully steer the teen in the right direction.”

The conference is free and open to everyone, Naegle hopes to draw in parents as well to listen to the presentations.

“These young kids see their relatives out on the street and there are already young people living on the streets, she said. “We have to somehow put a stop to it, do a turn around, maybe not a full100 percent, but to start breaking that cycle. We don’t want them to lose to drugs, alcohol, sexually transmitted diseases; HIV is on the rise again. We found that some are making their own drugs, not only do we want to help the teen but, the parent as well. Most of these teenagers come from a dysfunctional family, where one or both parents are using, unemployment, drop-outs, teen pregnancy also come into play. In most cases we find that both parents are not in the house and the grand parents are raising the kids.”

The TEEN Wellness Conference is also set for July 29 at the Twin Lakes Chapter House.

“Hopefully we can reach out to five out of ten teenagers to get serious about life, if they can apply themselves they will be thankful,” Naegles said. “We have had success in the past and hopefully again this year we will, we just want to reach out and help.”

Naegle also works with the elderly through her program,

“We have an Elderly Fest, which we focus on elderly abuse, medical topics, accidents and falls, and even engage the elderly in physical activities. We go around to different chapters and educate the public.”

For more information contact Freida Naegle at the Gallup – Navajo Health Education Program, 516 E. Nizhoni Blvd. GIMC #51 in Gallup or call (505) 722-1741.