Partnering in the war against drug and alcohol abuse.

By Daniel Mwendo

There will be a reduction in the number of individuals abusing drugs and alcohol in Mutomo District in the near future. The National Authority for Campaign against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) in conjunction with Africa Brotherhood Church and Akamba Council of Elders have rolled out a pilot project in Lower Eastern to train an individual in every location about alcohol and drug abuse.

Kitui South Constituency has been chosen for the pilot project whereby an individual has been selected from each location and trained about alcohol and drug abuse. The one day training which took place on 7^th August, 2013 at a Mutomo hotel saw 14 participants equipped with knowledge on drug types, effects and drug and alcohol management strategies. Participants in the training cited the following as the common drugs in Kitui south; alcohol, bangi, miraa (khat), kuber etc.

These locational representatives will spread on what they have been trained to the grassroots i.e. to the village level and afterwards the residents will elect ten people in every village to be named as the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Ambassadors (ADAA).ADAA’s role of alcohol and drug abuse ambassadors will be to constantly keep on undertaking the anti-drug campaign at the grassroots level. The idea is to stop non-users from being users and to encourage those who are abusing the drugs to reduce.

The idea was hatched in order to boost the chances of vision 2030 being a success bearing in mind that majority of those who are abusing drugs are the youth who form a great percentage of the entire population.

Questionnaires will be administered at the sub-locational level to capture the various information like types of drugs available, where they are found and projects which can be carried out to create alternative ways of income generation. A part from being drug abuse ambassadors, ADAAs will also have the mandate of resource mapping in order to identify the resources in their vicinities which can be utilized in order to provide alternative means of earning income and engaging the drug addicts.