‘RAUF helped me change my life’
A REPORT issued by Statistics South Africa in 2014 stated that 7.06% of the country’s population abused drugs of some kind and, with the problem becoming increasingly rampant, many are becoming desensitised to the seriousness of the issue.
But not for those who are part of the Refocus and Upliftment Foundation (RAUF).
One of the founders of the non-profit organisation, Ebrahim Dawood, said that after democracy, South Africa became plagued by many social ills. Drug addiction was one of them and due to it becoming more easily available it had become a source of comfort.
In June 1998 the foundation, which has 14 branches around the country, began offering counselling to addicts.
Now those former addicts are advocating that drug kingpins and their runners get harsh prison sentences. They want them off the streets and away from luring children into their nets.
Dawood said each province had its own drug of choice.
In KwaZulu-Natal it was sugars, a mixture of residual cocaine and heroin.
In Cape Town it was crystal meth and in Johannesburg, cocaine.
South Africa, he said, was one of the worst-affected countries and their organisation strived to turn this around by educating the public on the effects of drugs on the users themselves and their families.
This is done by getting recovering addicts to share their stories at schools and places of worship.
RAUF, which survives on public donations, is slowly but surely making inroads within communities, said Dawood.
“We offer counselling sessions, support groups, accommodation for drug users and feeding schemes for the community, which is sponsored by Gallagher Charitable Trust.
“At our branch in Clare Estate (Durban), we have 32 people staying with us. During the day they participate in skills development activities, including cooking and gardening. They can stay with us until they believe they are recovered.
“We do encourage them to attend support meetings and stick to what they were taught to avoid a relapse. If a person wants to study, thereafter, we try our very best to ensure they are able to do so. This gives them something productive to do and keeps them busy.”
Dawood said most of the addicts who came knocking at their doors, had heard about RAUF via other support groups or at soup kitchens. “They get screened, undergo a detox and then join the programme.”
There are eight branches in KZN and RAUF caters for addicts of all ages.
Dawood said the only solution to the scourge was for parents to become more involved in their children’s lives.
“The most effective deterrent to drug abuse among young people is a parent who is devoted to spending time with their children. Someone who talks to them about their friends, what goes on at school, the sport they play and what interests them.
“The more parents and other family members get involved, the more positive young people will feel about themselves and the more likely they will be to respond favourably to their family’s views.
“Monitoring a child’s activities does not mean you don’t trust them. It means you care enough to be involved. Also, always remember that contact with drugs involves the risk of criminal penalties and possibly a criminal record. This means that it is worth spending time to check a few facts, so that you can talk confidently about drugs.”
This, said Dawood, would ensure that parents do not exaggerate or make false claims that may make young people less likely to take their advice.
“You do not need to be an expert on drugs to help a young person choose not to use them and remember, it is important to make your position absolutely clear that you do not want them to use drugs ever.”
The spokesperson at the Department of Social Development in KZN, Ncumisa Ndelu, added that parents needed to communicate with their children to understand them better.
“Parents need to face reality and tell their children where babies really come from instead of using the aeroplane myth because they will find out from society,” she stressed.
Ndelu said the general public seemed not to realise the extent of drug abuse.
“It exists and it is huge. The wrong people are making money from destroying our children’s futures and we cannot give up. To fight it, we must educate them, form good relations with them, allow yourself to be that person he or she will share his or her every experience with. In that way, they don’t need to go to people who will misguide them.”
The department, said Ndelu, held drug prevention campaigns and funded both registered and unregistered NGOs that worked with substance-abuse patients. JUNAID Abrahams, formerly of Westbury in Johannesburg, said he would have been a qualified mechanical engineer if he had not mixed with the wrong crowd and become addicted to drugs.
The 28-year-old grew up in a warm home with his mother and sister.
His father lived elsewhere and he and his sister visited him during the holidays.
Everything was going well, he said, until high school.
“I met the wrong friends but I don’t blame them because nobody forced me to light that zol.”
When his mother found out, she stopped his allowance. This prompted him to shoplift.
He failed Grade 11 and was too embarrassed to return, so he dropped out
Despite having earned a reputation of being a gangster, his father never gave up on him.
“He enrolled me for a mechanical engineering course. The money he used to give me for textbooks, I spent on drugs.
“I never attended classes and when my dad found out, I left and found a job as a shop-fitter.
“As I began working, I realised I was working purely to get money for drugs, not clothing or toiletries. I wasn’t even helping my mother with buying groceries.”
He recalled that a cousin from Cape Town had had a drug problem and his aunt had sent him to a RAUF branch there. His cousin had recovered and secured a decent job.
“I spoke to my mom and she accompanied me to the HR office at work where I resigned.
“I admitted I had a problem and that was the first step in the road to recovery.”
He joined the Johannesburg support groups and after detox, relocated to Durban.
Abrahams has been in KZN for 10 months.
He spends his days cooking for RAUF’s feeding schemes and delivering talks to high schools pupils on the dangers of drug abuse. SENZO Mabaso says he was once one of the most-wanted criminals in KwaMashu, because he often robbed neighbours there.
“I started smoking cigarettes in Grade 6 and in Grade 8, I graduated to weed,” said Mabaso, who made it clear that he did not come from a troubled home. He lived with his grandmother and mother, who were employed and provided for him and his siblings.
While at school, he used to bunk classes with his friends. They would all pool their money and hold a house party at one of his peer’s homes, while their parents were at work.
“By the time I was in matric, I was taking ecstasy, which is also known as umgwinyo, and whoonga. But I still managed to pass matric,” said the 30-year-old father of one.
After he matriculated, he left home to live on the streets. “I wanted to feed my drug habit freely and that’s when I started becoming a full-time criminal.
“I carjacked, I stabbed, I mugged. I did everything I could, so that I could get money and get high.
“One day I got caught. I had recently stabbed someone from the community for their cellphone and wallet.”
He said he had been caught by the community, who assaulted him. “Everybody began hitting me with bricks, steel sticks, sjamboks, anything they could find.
Hitting
“When they thought I was dead, they left me at the Inanda dam,” he claimed.
Police found him and he was taken to hospital for treatment.
“I was in a coma for two months. When I woke up, a policeman spoke to me about changing my habits. The policeman, Captain Megan, then referred me to the RAUF support group and I joined the rehabilitation programme.”
A year later, Mabaso has earned a certificate in entrepreneurship and wants to own his own bakery.