SANCA bringing the fight against drug addiction

The South African National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (SANCA) will be launching their Protea satellite office in the SANCA drug awareness week in June.

The aim of the launch is for us to be able to raise awareness for people to see there’s an addiction and the need to address the issue is there.

The services manager Victor Mbinga said, “We are trying to intensify not so much on awareness but more on prevention looking at promoting good health and better health choices and healthy lifestyle for people in general.”

Originally the launch was meant to happen on May 4, but due to logistical issues, the organisation could not launch on the proposed date.

“We decided to postpone the event to a later date, unfortunately, because we had already informed the community during our door to door campaign in April.

We felt it necessary to communicate it back to the residents that we still intend to do the event in correlation with the international substance abuse day in June.

Now that the date has been moved Mbinga said the event will be more intense because they just recently opened another satellite office in Diepkloot, therefore they want to include Protea and Diepkloof residents.

“We wanted to make sure that there is enough community participation at the launch, also including the Meadowlands residents in the mix, because they don’t know where to find us.

We just want the residents to know that the event will happen, normally international substance abuse day is on the 26^th of June, so we have decided that it’s better to combine all the events include the launch,” said Mbinga.

SANCA Soweto Treatment Centre is a non-profit organization that came into existence as a response to growing problems of substance abuse in Soweto.

The satellite office in Protea is expected to run prevention programme and social work services for the community.

“We have not confirmed whether medical services will be accommodated on the premises as we have an issue of space and funding,” said Mbinga.

Mbinga said they will also be running the “Kick your habit campaign” that will also bring awareness of the services offered but also the issues that are affecting the community related to drugs and substance abuse.

Several stakeholders will be working with SANCA to make the event a powerful one said Mbinga, such as the Local Drug Action Committee, Metro Police, COPESSA, Emergency Medical Services etc.

Mbinga said that unfortunately they don’t deal with treatment but they do offer awareness talks to push prevention before cure.

Mbinga said, “It’s a collective effort of fighting drugs with the residents just encouraging the community to support the people in the community who are facing drug addiction or dependence.”

Mbinga wanted to let drug users know there is still hope for them.

“The journey may seem hopeless at this stage but we should all stand by each other in an effort to fight drugs and substance abuse it’s unfortunate that we find ourselves in this situation but it doesn’t determine our ending.

It’s our own actions and conviction that we ensure that we are able to overcome this challenge.”

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