Address drug abuse and young people

The primary objective of this initiative was to revive hope in young people in the township who are just sitting at home and not working or studying.

According to provincial chairperson of the Local Drug Action Committee, Thabang Xaba this forms part of the committee’s initiative of looking at underlying factors that cause young people to turn to drugs.

“Last year our focus was mainly on smokers and suppliers of drugs in our communities and finding ways of booking them into facilities that can help them.

“However, since we see that there is still an increase of drug users despite our many efforts, this year we opted to change the focus and instead look at the underlying factors which may be causing our youth to turn to drugs.

“We are doing this under our selected theme of Change Begins with Me,” says Xaba.

He says that through research they have found that at times it is because young people are sitting idle so they end up involved in bad activities.

Hence, during the gathering, various stakeholders, including the Ekurhuleni Metro, NYDA, the Department of Social Development, SANCA, Ekurhuleni East College, EMPD and Ergo Mining Academy were invited to address the youth on the opportunities available to them.

Xaba says that they appreciate the help from these partners as they are hoping that by the end of the year they will see no young KwaThema people sitting on street corners and doing nothing.

“Through this we are trying to get young people into skills development programmes, school

and possible careers they will love so that they can be empowered.

“We have also organised local motivational speakers including pastor Humphrey Sibande, Sphumi Mbane, Innocent Ximba and Musa Zwane to help motivate our youth,” he says.