The Gauteng Department of Social Development's West Rand has created avenues to curb the abuse of substances in the communities.
Speaking during an interview at Westside FM, Social Workers from the region,Thakadu Sepoloane and Tshifuwa Maguvha encouraged the listeners to utilise services offered by the department.
"Peer pressure is a strong factor in starting to use and misuse drugs, particularly for young people. Lack of family involvement. Difficult family situations or lack of a bond with your parents or siblings may increase the risk of addiction, as can a lack of parental supervision. High unemployment rate is one of the main contributing factors.
As a department, we work with skills development agencies where community members can be empowered with skills to enable them to access the job market. We also assist members of the community to establish cooperatives. These interventions by the department can minimize substance abuse in the community as people will be occupied", said Maguvha.
Sepoloane added that, "If community members work with our department, together we can have a better society. We do take people who are consuming substances to rehabilitation centres but without family support, beneficiaries tend to relapse. They usually suffer from name calling such as nyaope boys or girls but if they access our services as family it becomes better.
We ensure families stay together and stronger".
"Fighting excessive use of alcohol and drugs can also reduce crime and gender-based-violence and it is evident as we saw a decrease in crime during alert level 5 lockdown. We appeal to the listeners to go to our offices across the region and make use of our services at no cost",