Substance use prevention for Mamelodi Youth

Posted on August 25, 2021

“If you kiss drugs, you marry it”

The Occupational Therapy Department at the University of Pretoria has been working with the Community Oriented Substance Use Programme (COSUP) in Mamelodi at their Ikageng, Lusaka, and Mamelodi Regional Hospital (MRH) sites since 2016
On 26 March 2021, four final-year occupational therapy (OT) students, the social worker from COSUP Ikageng, the social worker intern from COSUP MRH, as well as a community member from Mamelodi who had previously used substances conducted an awareness campaign on substance-use prevention at a high school in Mamelodi East.

The event was organised with a preventative approach in mind. During the collaboration process, it was mentioned by team members of COSUP that the organisation wants to move towards a preventative approach in addition to their existing harm reduction work.

During the awareness day, the group spoke to three grade ten classes and one grade 12 class. The classes were chosen by the teacher we collaborated with, as these were classes with learners who may be experimenting with drugs.

The broad topics covered were drug use and the effects thereof on a person’s life, what COSUP is and their role in the community and with substance users, and the role of occupational therapy in the community.

Tshepo, a former drug user, shared his story with the learners. You could hear a pin drop when he explained how drug use affected his life. “If you kiss drugs, you marry it”. When explaining this, Tshepo said that once you try smoking nyaope, you want to smoke it all the time. You lose control and the drug begins to control you.

Learners asked many questions after he spoke, ranging from drug use and what exactly classifies as drugs, to the reasons behind Tshepo’s drug use in the past. It was clear that the learners were moved by listening to Tshepo share his knowledge and experiences. Given, the social worker at COSUP Ikageng, was also there to answer questions from the learners.

After each session, learners took the COSUP flyer with information about the services that they offer. OT students hung up a drug prevention poster with a powerful statement – “It is easier to stay off drugs, than to get off drugs'' in each classroom. The posters included the effects of substance use, why illicit drugs are bad for you and tips for staying off drugs. These posters will be a constant reminder in the classrooms of the health awareness event and the information that was shared on drug use.

 

- Author Dr Michele Janse van Rensburg

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