Pretoria - Tshepo Mankaba, a nyaope user for 21 years residing at the Mabopane Station, is tired of being homeless.
He was one of the drug users who attended a soup kitchen hosted by Clean Up Hub founder Reikhutsitse Malala, Kgatso Funerals and comedian Brra Thabiso at the station on Sunday.
Mankaba said he was introduced to drugs by a friend, who gave him “dagga”. He was surprised after a day of smoking he had stomach cramps, and that normal weed did not feed the cravings he had.
That was the start of his affair with nyaope – and he has not stopped since then. His family disowned him.
“It’s difficult staying on the streets and I want to get help; I am tired of this addiction, I want to go back home, but they won’t accept me like this.
“I was staying with my grandmother before she chased me away because of drugs. I was raised by her and have had no relationship with my father; I don’t blame him, but still believe that it would have helped if he was around to guide me,” he said.
Clean Up Hub is looking at actively recruiting 50 drug users to take up their six-week rehabilitation programme at their three affiliated facilities.
On Sunday, more than 100 homeless users, who sleep at the station, were served bread and soup while also being encouraged to take up the free rehabilitation offer.
According to Malala, they partnered with Kgatso Funerals and Brra Thabiso in efforts to speak to the drug users in a more friendly way. They also wanted to show them love and appreciation while reminding them that it was not too late to change their lives and take up rehabilitation.
“We wanted to get their ear, have a sit-down with them one on one and understand some of their challenges with regards to kicking the habit,” he said.
“Most importantly we wanted to reintegrate the users with their families because most of the issues they faced have do with their family composition structure, which revolves around lack of fathers in the community.
“In at least 90% of the contact cases we have had with users, they always attribute their addiction or triggers to being abandoned by their fathers. Drug users are groomed by their friends on streets because they don’t know their fathers.”
Brra Thabiso said he joined the activation because he believed that users were more receptive of familiar faces.
“Comedy is also a powerful tool as it allows us to entertain and educate people without being serious. I took a walk with Malala to their drug den and it is a very scary place; I think most people treat these people badly because of their living conditions and appearance, but they are also humans and deserve love and to be given a second chance and third. We should never give up on them,” he said.
Founder of Kgatso Funerals, Tshepo Tshabalala, said they were approached by Malala to do the soup kitchen as part of the drive to recruit users to go to rehab and highlight the dangers of ingredients of nyaope.
He said the users were now mixing nyaope with embalming powder used to preserve dead bodies.
“The powder is very dangerous and harmful to their systems because it’s strong and should not be consumed.
“Not too many people know about this, and as an industry we wanted to also raise awareness on this.
“Ironically, because we are in the death business, we also want to prevent death of these users, because we believe that they can still bring value to their communities,” he added.
Pretoria News