Pretoria - At least 20 young people braved yesterday's rain and walked from Joburg to Pretoria to raise awareness about drug abuse in Pretoria townships.
The group of youth from Soshanguve and surrounding townships said they wanted people to know that more needed to be done to curtail the growing use of crystal meth by young people in their communities.
Activist and Clean-Up Hub founder Khutsi Malala was leading the walk for the fifth consecutive year since the days when he highlighted the destruction nyaope was causing in the lives of young people.
The walk will continue today and end at Mabopane railway station, where the drug users will be engaged and enticed to accept help, after sharing a cake with the activists.
Malala and his team also highlighted how many young people in Mabopane were unsafely sharing blood through needles, in order to “transfer euphoria” in a method they refer to as “bluetoothing”.
He said right now the number of young people using crystal meth was increasing and that was something the Department of Social Development, non-profit organisations and society needed to be informed about.
“We are seeing many cases where the users of crystal meth are becoming erratically violent. Most of these users and their families only speak about this problem when it is really too late, because of fear of judgement from the community.
“That is why we are also using this walk to call out all the users of crystal meth and make them aware that there is still hope for them,” said Malala.
He said another thing they had noticed during this Covid-19 pandemic was that many rehabilitation centres were not adhering to Covid-19 safety protocols, which reduces the intake of users at the facilities.
“Because the intake of users was compromised, there is a backlog of users who are in a queue to go to rehabilitation. We would like to call on the Department of Social Development to bear in mind that our files are growing while we adhere to Covid-19 protocols.”
Malala said they would be closing roads in Soshanguve today after finishing the last leg of the walk. Community members would be invited to come and engage and seek help, together with their family members.
Normally, around that time some users struggling to curb the habit raise their hands and ask for help because they acknowledge that their life is just not going where they hoped it would.
This instalment of the walk was sponsored by Hollywood Bets, which aided the team with cars to follow them on their walk and ensure their safety, and an ambulance with paramedics who were on standby ready to assist if needed.
Pretoria News