Off drugs
A recent survey found that 26 per cent of drug abusers in Egypt are under 25. Efforts are afoot in schools and on the street to rectify this alarming situation, Amira El-Noshokaty discovers
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Clockwise from far left: young and earning a living at a workshop in Mansheyet Nasser; teaching about the dangers of drugs in the same neighbourhood; a teenager attending the lecture; students at Al-Orman school learning about how to convince their peers to reject drugs
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Young lives that are full of promise can be abruptly ended by drug use. That's just one example of the frightening messages that are typically central to public information campaigns to discourage youth from taking up drugs and cigarettes. Far from such scare tactics directed at youth and their parents, a new awareness programme in Egypt takes a different approach.
The "From Young People to Young People" programme was launched by the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) a year ago to encourage Egyptian youth under the age of 18 to desist from taking up cigarettes and drugs. The programme was just one of the outcomes of a national conference on protecting young people from smoking and drugs that was held in 2001 under the patronage of Mrs Suzanne Mubarak.
High hopes are pinned on the success of the Young People programme by virtue of its particular approach: instead of finger-wagging by adults, the initiative trains adolescents to promote awareness of the dangers of drug abuse and smoking among their peers. The project is a collaborative effort by the NCCM, the regional branch of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (UNDPC), psychiatrists, sociologists as well as several local non- governmental organisations (NGOs).
If recent statistics are anything to go by, Young People faces a daunting task. The baseline for assessing progress towards eradicating drug use by youth comes from a report by the regional office of UNDPC issued in March 2001. That document, which was based on a study conducted during 1998-1999 in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Health, found that 26.6 per cent of drug abusers were under the age of 25 and that bango [marijuana] and beer were commonly abused. Conducted in five governorates, including Cairo, the study comprised 636 interviews.
"We found that young people only listen to their peers," explained an NCCM source who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly on condition of anonymity. "And so our plan enlists the help of the popular students at school as well as students with highly-developed social skills, so that it is students who talk to their friends and put the message out," the source explained.
Young People is being piloted in Cairo at three schools -- two private and one public -- and in the district of Mansheyet Nasser. The first schools in the programme are the private institutions Misr Language School and Misr 2000 and the public Al-Orman secondary school for boys. An average of 30 student leaders from each of the three schools and 40 social workers participated in eight workshops on programme goals and methods.
Mahmoud Saleh, a student at Al- Orman and member of its council, was chosen as an advocate of the anti-drug message at his school. "During our training course, we were taught how to control a situation and solve problems," explained Saleh, who added that the sessions helped to give him the necessary self-confidence to promote awareness among any age group. Summing up the factors that lead youth to take up smoking and abuse drugs, Saleh immediately brought up negligence by the family and peer pressure. But, as he emphasised, those aren't the only causes.
"A young addict wants to prove that he is free; that he is a man, and he plans to harm the whole of society just to capture the community's attention and prove that he exists," Saleh said. The young leader went on to explain how his training sessions included meeting recovering drug addicts at various stages of treatment to see the affect drugs can have. "After attending the sessions, I tried helping my best friend. He used to smoke cigarettes and I started to try to talk him into quitting. Before the school year ended, he'd given up the habit," Saleh said, adding that cigarette smoking by minors often leads to drug abuse -- an assertion that is backed by scientific data.
According to an October 1994 paper published by Egypt's National Seminar for Combating Drugs and Addiction Treatment, which was held by the National Council for Combating and Treating Addiction, "Among students at public secondary schools nation-wide, there is a link between smoking and access to drugs. The percentage of smokers among those taking drugs is 60.24 per cent, while the percentage of smokers among students who are not drug users is 7.64 per cent."
Young People sends experienced junior leaders to summer camps to train new advocates of the anti-drug message. This past summer, three trainers conveyed their skills to 150 boys and girls.
With 6,000 students, Al-Orman offers considerable scope for assessing the project's approach. As Shaban Mashhour, principal of the school, sat amidst the awards and trophies his institution had won, he noted that student leaders were not just selected from the older students. "I need to have an on-going programme, in which second year student leaders continue with the awareness programme after the others graduate," he explained.
At Al-Orman's theatre, approximately 70 students gathered to attend a seminar on the programme. And though there were no teachers present at the event, students offered thoughtful suggestions to address drug abuse, including measures that were extremely stringent. As the discussion heated up, participants' voices became louder as one suggested shutting down all cigarette factories in Egypt. Some pointed out that the media is partially to blame with respect to smoking, because it never presents real life examples of people who had suffered from their habit. Other students invoked religion, noting prohibitions against smoking. One person who attended such an event a year ago is Hisham Ahmed -- now a student leader at Al-Orman.
Ahmed is now responsible for providing other student leaders with information on research and history about drug use and keeping track of Al- Orman's anti-drug efforts. He does these tasks in conjunction with the International Education and Resources Network (IERAN) -- a programme sponsored by the American embassy to promote drug control and awareness around the world. "Our goal is to document our students' approach and share our school's experience on a more international level."
At Al-Orman, the anti-drug message has been taken up in other school activities. Mohamed Abdel-Gawad, secretary-general of the Student Union, started the Rouh al-shabab club (the Youthful Spirit Club), which holds seminars and promotes awareness of drug issues alongside its sports and cultural activities. For Abdel-Gawad, channelling teens energy into constructive projects is the only way to protect them from becoming involved in any misconduct, including drug use.
From Young People to Young People goes beyond the schoolyard, though, as it is also working in the Mansheyet Nasser district, one of the most economically deprived informal housing areas in Cairo, which is also residence to approximately 400 working children.
Throughout Mansheyet Nasser, small workshops are squeezed among houses that line the unpaved roads. An NGO in the district hosted one of the awareness sessions that targeted workshop owners and mothers of working children.
"If you're a drug addict, your secret is safe," said Hani Ghanam, former assistant to the Minister of Interior and a member of the Association for Banning Alcohol and Combating Drugs, as he explained how to communicate with a drug addict.
"Beating your child will not cure him from drug addiction, neither will dragging him to our association for treatment. You have to talk to him and encourage him to seek help. He must want to be cured and you must stand by him. You have to be very strict with your children, because drug abuse is a crisis. It is like a monster that could eat us all and you would be the first, because parents of drug addicts are the number one murder victims in our society, and 80 per cent of crimes are caused by drug abusers."
Delivering the anti-drug message in Mansheyet Nasser involved dividing the area into smaller sectors, where community leaders and people of influence were first approached. Through the aid of local NGOs who supplied the venue for seminars, Young People succeeded in approaching 150 mothers, 150 working children and around 50 workshop owners. The results were encouraging.
One of the mothers who attended the awareness sessions was Zahra Zaki. "I first started attending awareness sessions in Ramadan," Zaki recalled, "I learned the signs of drug addiction and what to watch for in my son's conduct and that of his friends. If I detect such symptoms, I could contact any of the hot-lines like number 139 and an ambulance would come and pick him up for treatment."
Aziza Fouad, another mother living in Mansheyet Nasser, views the sessions as providing her with means to protect her son Abdou from drug abuse. "My brother was a drug addict and I suffered a lot as a result of his habit. Now, at least I know what signs to look for and whom to contact." Such phone lines are linked to several NGO's that support the rehabilitation of drug addicts who are unable to afford treatment.
Moustafa Mohamed is one of many working teens in Mansheyet Nasser. Mohamed dropped out of school at age 12 and has since worked as a machinist. He first heard of the Young People seminars from friends. Those events, he says, were interesting and useful for him to the extent that he even convinced other friends to join him. Most of them have since quit smoking bango. Discussing his experience in trying to impart to his friends and colleagues the knowledge he gained about the effects of drugs on the human body, Mohamed said, "At first, they would not listen, but when I supported my words with scientific references in which I quoted doctors, for example, they began to pay attention."
Mohamed attributes the success of the awareness seminars to the way information is presented. "The lecturers here are very friendly and interact with us. They treat me like their younger brother, and always support their words with scientific information. Besides, you know, bango cigarettes damage your brain cells." Mohamed seems unwilling to limit his pursuit of knowledge to the effects of drugs, however, having expressed an interest in applying for a literacy course that is especially for working children in the neighbourhood.
Literacy courses are just one facet of the integrated development agenda of Mansheyet Nasser that includes initiatives like micro-loans for housewives. There is also a project in which a group of women provide hot meals to people at the workshops. Another dimension of the agenda is raising environmental awareness in what is one of the most polluted areas of Cairo being a centre for the collecting of garbage.
Such community integration is what Ahmed Abul-Azayem, psychiatrist, owner of a rehabilitation centre and head of the Arab Union for Combating Drugs, regards as very important. Abul- Azayem provides video seminars on the physiology of drug addiction and the causes of addiction to the awareness seminars.
"There are several reasons behind drug abuse, requiring comprehensive and creative solutions," Abul-Azayem said. "First, I have to make my audience think," he explained. "We tell them that they are in large part responsible for their poverty, because they waste all their money on drugs and cigarettes. These people are already recycling all sorts of garbage. They are artists and all we have to do is channel their energy in the right direction where their iron ribbons would turn into iron ornaments that they could market. I have to help them create an integrated change in their reality," he said. Through community efforts, he said, the people of Mansheyet Nasser transformed a place were garbage had been piled up into a playground. "I advocate going out and interacting with people instead of holding conferences on drug abuse. It is only when you interact with the people themselves that you are able to combat drugs."
However, these locally-based efforts only touch the tip of the iceberg. The United Nations Office for Drug Control and Prevention, in a report published last year, puts the number of drug abusers in the world at some 185 million people -- 3.1 per cent of the global population.
