Olympia Park School learners taught about danger of drugs
The stakeholders included Love Life, the Department of Social Development and Elim Clinic Professional Treatment Centre for Addiction.
Olympia Park School in Geduld held a workshop for learners on July 16.
The school partnered with different stakeholders to raise the learners’ awareness of drug abuse.
Mahlomola Radebe from the Health Promotion and Outreach Department at the Springs Clinic says: “We decided to have a wellness day for the school.
“We are here to educate the learners about the bad effects of drugs because we noticed how drugs affect learners mostly in school and in the community.
“We have brought someone who used to take drugs to come and speak to them because we feel they need to hear such things from people who’ve been there.
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“Our two main topics for today were drugs and human trafficking, and that’s why we brought speakers from the Department of Social Development and from Elim Clinic.
“What we are hoping to achieve with the programme is for learners to learn about and be aware that drugs are dangerous.”
Mnelisi Mawela, a Ward 74 committee member, says: “Olympia Park School is one of the two special schools which we have in Ward 74, the other being KwaThema Skill School.
“The learners of these two schools are targeted by drug dealers as they are easily manipulated, which leads to them falling into drugs.
“That is why we approached Mr Radebe to work with us in organising such programmes.
“We brought this programme to the school so that we reach the learners at a place where they are comfortable as opposed to taking it outside school to the community, where it would involve everyone.”
The life skills teacher at the school, Pertunia Maloba, says the topics covered in the programme are part of the syllabus. However, they don’t study them in depth, so they invited the speakers to discuss these topics. She feels learners will understand the topics better if they hear about them from other people.
The stakeholders included Love Life, the Department of Social Development and Elim Clinic Professional Treatment Centre for Addiction.
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