‘Kyk my hier, nie hier nie’
There was not a dry eye in the house as past graduates delivered their testimonies and told tales of the abyss their dependence took them down.
We see them every day; women, often accompanied by a band of men, who are in the clutches of drug addiction.
In this era of hookahs, zols, cat, lolly and a host of other destructive substances. We pass them by and their emaciated, gaunt appearances are becoming an all-too familiar sight on our streets.
Most use their bodies to feed their habits and are ostracised by the community and alienated from their families. We use them as a cautionary tale, “You don’t want to end up like so-and-so”, we tell our children.
Substance abuse is not a new phenomenon in Eldorado Park. The sickly-sweet aroma of dagga mixed with mandrax, or a ‘pill’ is one which brings back memories of men sitting in dingy ‘zozos’ and consuming the drugs until the strong head rush causes them to topple over in their own vomit.
Fast forward to the new millennium and it is our children who are too easily lured into substance abuse.
Many young lives have been lost as the demon rampages through our community, claiming the once-promising futures of our youth.
While the debate rages on about the irreversible effects of substance abuse, centres like the Hadassah Centre for Women (HCW) in De Deur and Come Back Mission (CBM) are fighting the battle to rescue ruined lives from the grip of addiction.
HCW and CBM held a threefold celebration at the centre, fondly known as ‘Die Plaas’ on August 26. They celebrated five years in existence and 10 years since CBM’s inception.
Their third reason for celebrating was to honour the three latest graduates to have completed the six-month rehabilitation programme.
The latest graduates were Candice Thomas, Fazlyn MacLaren and Refiloe Lethlake who symbolically cast off their former selves and were crowned as princesses, ready to take on life outside of the farm and into the welcoming arms of families who were on the brink of giving up on them.
There were familiar faces too, like Elsie Pretorius who graduated from the programme last year, Feryal Hutton, Kelly-Ann Dearling and Janine Forbay, all testament to the fact that addiction need not have a complete hold over their lives.
There was not a dry eye in the house as past graduates delivered their testimonies and told tales of the abyss their dependence took them down.
CBM founder Cheryl Pillay, said, “What the devil meant for destruction, God is using to build lives.”
This in reference to the land on which the centre stands being used as a drug manufacturing base before it was established as a rehabilitation centre.
Pillay said that to date, 1750 women have walked through their doors and many are welcomed back even after slipping back into old habits after their release from the programme.
CBM has introduced an out-patient programme at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital which caters mainly for men and a former patient, Abdulkader Lachporia delivered a stirring testimony of his twenty-year drug habit and said, “Drugs are like a cell-phone, you always want to upgrade to something better until you end up with a tablet.”
The centre relies primarily on donations from outside sources as the treatment offered is free and German benefactors Reinard and Johanna Rauschenbach were there to see first-hand the lives being impacted.
Of the many programmes offered at the centre, the one which sticks out most is that they aim to return a sense of self-worth to women who have been used by men who take advantage of their dependence on substances for sexual favours and choruses of their mantra, ‘Kyk my hier, nie hier nie’ by those still undergoing rehabilitation rang out in affirmation.
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