Building dreams through recovery
After years of prayer, her prayers were finally answered
Dereleen James, drug-activist and founder of the Yellow Ribbon Foundation, has always made it her life’s goal to make a difference in the community and defeat the great juggernaut called drugs in the community.
After years of prayer, her prayers were finally answered when she received land to open a recovery hub for the school children in Eldorado Park.
”I’m excited for what’s to come here. The main purpose for us setting up this recovery hub is to support at-risk youth in our community, to be of support to schools.
“We find that a lot of the teachers don’t spend much time teaching our learners because they have to deal with a lot of the social ills such as drugs, teenage pregnancy and kids that don’t have a meal in the morning,” said James.
She has partnered with Lancea Vale Secondary School and would also like to include all the other schools in this project.
“We would like to support the schools in Eldorado Park so that we can monitor the learners and help them move away from a place of addiction to a space of recovery,” she said.
James described the process as an ongoing project that will only be officially kicked off in February next year. She added that this was only Phase One of the project and stressed that a lot of work remained to be done.
“What we’re doing now, is just setting up a container so that we can at least have a contact centre so that when parents are lost and don’t know what do, they can at least come here. Here they can find placement for addicts and deal with all the socials that face our community,” James added.
Pierre Dixon from Sondlwane Consulting Agency said that they were appointed by Coca-Cola, one of the sponsors of the five-year project in the works next door to Lancea Vale in Eldorado Park Extension Four.
Ashley Phillips, principal of Lancea Vale Secondary School, said, “It is a pleasure to collaborate, work with and start with this project with the Yellow Ribbon Foundation and with the sponsorship of Coca-Cola, putting up a container that will become an office, to assist members of the community with community challenges such as teenage pregnancy, learners who’ve got a problem with addictions.”
He also added, “We also foresee that our learners will be able to receive counselling, so we are excited about it.”
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