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Active Youth Zimbabwe set to build drug rehabilitation center

by Stephen Jakes
20 Feb 2024 at 09:59hrs | Views
ACTIVE YOUTH ZIMBABWE is planning to build a drug rehabilitation center which will be located  at Pumula South, Bulawayo.

In an interview, Active Youth Zimbabwe Editorial Director, Romeo Matshazi said the organization is facing several challenges in constructing and developing the center.

"We are faced with lack of funding to buy building materials so that we construct a drug treatment facility. We have no promising sponsors yet and building can take two months at least," said Matshazi.   

Matshazi said the organization would need funding of approximately US$120 000 and that the project will increase community participation in the creation of a drug-free and quality learning environment for children and youth in Bulawayo province.

"The specific objectives of the project are to strengthen capacities of local institutions on anti-drug-abuse activities in Bulawayo province, while providing drug treatment and rehabilitation services like detoxification, In patient Treatment and Outpatient Treatment," he said.

"The establishment of this drug treatment and rehabilitation center will build pathways for the community to adapt to shocks and stresses as this will also act as a youth recreational center where correctional services will be done to bring up responsible members of the community."

"An estimate of 5000 youth from across Bulawayo province will benefit from this project through awareness campaigns, community dialogues and sporting tournaments aiming to bring youths together," Matshazi added.

He said the center will educate youth on vocational skills as the majority of them in urban areas are faced with systemic constraints as they participate to a smaller extent in these opportunities that the economic shift provides.

Matshazi said more than 50% of the youths are unskilled due to weak access to education and training and more than 90% of youths who aspire to participate in the vocational enterprise informal sector encounter systematic constraints as they lack the requisite technical skills to do so.

"The urban community has been hit by drug and substance abuse, early marriages and pregnancies and increased crime rate. The established Centre seeks to combat all the drivers related to instances of drug and substance abuse," he said.

Active Youth Zimbabwe was founded in May 2012 initially as a self-help youth group but later, in 2014, it transformed into a Youth Association under the Ministry of Youth and Zimbabwe Youth Council.

It then subsequently registered as a Trust on 1 March 2016 with the mandate of promoting child and youth development in Zimbabwe. AYZ's program activities and projects are currently based in Bulawayo province.

Source - Byo24News