Alcohol and Drug Information Centre (ADIC) Sri Lanka is a well-recognized resource center, promoting demand reduction of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs and advocating effective policy the formulation for ATOD control nationally, regionally and internationally over the last 30 years. ADIC provides the technical input to the Ministry of Health, Regional Director of the Health Service (RDHS), MOH, Ministry of Education, District Secretariats, Divisional Secretariats, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Community Empowerment and Estate Infrastructure Development, local government authorities, National Authority on Alcohol and Tobacco (NATA), President Task Force on drug prevention in terms of technicality, educational/promotional materials on drug prevention, resource persons and information. ADIC is collaborating many field-level types of research and community-level experiments with the World Health Organization – Sri Lanka. ADIC is a member organization of the National Authority on Alcohol and Tobacco (NATA) and the Center for Combating Tobacco (CCT).

Furthermore, ADIC is conducting an internship Programme for students of the University of Colombo and University of Kelaniya, University of Rajarata, and National Institute of Social Development (NISD) with the acceptable guidelines from 2010.

On par with the above, with the facilitation of the Department of Media studies, Alcohol and Drug Information Center (ADIC) organized a competition to create short films on drug prevention and enhance university students’ knowledge and skills in the year 2020. Although this program started during the Covid – 19 pandemic, it has had many successful results. Despite all the challenges, the event overcame the challenges and achieved the desired goals using virtual technology.

The following students are won the awards in the competition.

• First Place : Ms. P. Sriviththiya (Third Year, Media Studies) – Won Award and Rs. 50,000.00 Cash Prize
• Second Place: Ms. N.Sharumathy (Third Year, Media Studies) – Won Award and Rs. 30,000 Cash Prize
• Third Prize: Ms. Kamsajini Premaraj (First Year, Media Studies) – Won Award and Rs. 20,000 Cash Prize 
• Fourth Prize : Mr. Raveenthiran Benaya (First Year, Media Studies) – Won Award and Rs. 10,000 Cash Prize

The award ceremony was held at University of Jaffna and the ADIC officials and students participated virtually at the event on 1st of July 2021.

Professor S. Srisatkunarajah, Vice Chancellor, University of Jaffna graced the occasion by participating as the Chief Guest and announce the winner of the first place. 

At the key note speech, Vice Chancellor explains the global scenario on combatting alcohol, tobacco and cannabis and congratulated the students for their effective participation even during the pandemic hardships. 

Vice Chancellor further advised to create a memorandum of understanding between the University and ADIC to sustain the professional relationship and to enhance the future endeavors. 

Dr. K. Suthakar, Dean, Faculty of Arts and Mr. Pubudu Sumanasekara, Executive Director – ADIC and Vice President -Movendi International announced the winners of the second, third and fourth places.

Dr.S.Raguram, Head, Department of Media Studies described the importance of the participation of the students during pandemic period.

The staff of Media Studies and the students attended the event directly and virtually. Mr. Samapth De Seram, Director HR, Admin and Finance, ADIC, Mr. Amaranath Tenna, Programme Manager, ADIC, Mr. A.C.Raheem, Senior Programme Officer, ADIC and Ms. Nidarshana Selladurai, Programme Officer, ADIC were participated at the event from ADIC. Mr. A. Kodeeswaran, Coordinator of North and East Province, ADIC delivered the vote of thanks.