How teachers and parents are fighting to rescue students from drug addiction

Many anti-drugs campaigns have been launched in Mombasa and neighbouring Coastal towns. [PHOTOS: MAARUFU MOHAMED/STANDARD]

By STANDARD ON SUNDAY TEAM

NAIROBI, KENYA: Across the country, parents and teachers are having a hard time containing heavy consumption of illicit drugs by students.

A student at a public school in Mombasa recently punched his parent in front of teachers after he was questioned over his behaviour.

He was often absent from school, his eyes were running, his hair was uncombed and he could not concentrate in class. “Drama unfolded when the parent tried to talk to the boy over his behaviour in school. We had summoned the parent to the school but the student turned violent and attacked him,” said a teacher who witnessed the incident.

The boy later admitted he was using assorted hard drugs, particularly bhang, after teachers and the parent firmly demanded answers.

Our spot check on several schools in Mombasa County established that the institutions were fighting off rampant use of drugs. At the Sacred Heart High School on Mombasa Island, a raft of measures have been put in place to contain drug abuse. Principal Veronicah Marami says the school has been fenced off to lock out food vendors who used to sneak in drugs and instead, a lunch programme introduced to minimise the movement of students in search of food outside the institution.

“We could ambush the students and carry out checks in their bags and strange enough, they could drop bottles of spirits and syringe needles in the school hall to avoid being caught,” said Marami.

Gradually, 100 of them had to leave the school because it was easy to notice drug users since they had running eyes, were often absent, kept on going to the toilets and recorded poor performance. Mr Omar Ndaro Mwagaga, the headmaster of Serani Secondary School in Mombasa, admitted that drug abuse has been rampant in the institution. He says it has been a struggle to suppress the menace for the last four years he has headed the school.

“Although we have made strides, many parents still deny their children are abusing drugs and opt to take them away from the school whenever they are found to be drug abusers,” said Mr Mwagaga.

 He remembers a time when a boy admitted smoking bhang but his father denied and opted to take him away instead of supporting counselling by teachers to help him reform.

Sheikh Juma Ngao, the chairman of the Kenya Muslim National Advisory Council (Kemnac) and a parent, says a Nacada survey of 2010 on drug abuse showed children are targeted. He says parents should be vigilant.

In 2004, Geofrey Momanyi Nandunda, like any other teenager, was excited about life, yet full of optimism that the future is bright. He aspired to complete school and train as a mechanical engineer but his dream was shattered because of drugs and substance abuse.

Momanyi, now a motorbike rider in Nyamira, was born in 1991 at Koige village, Mau Summit location in Nakuru County. He joined Mau Summit Secondary school in 2004 and was committed to hard work.

As a teenager, making new friends was exciting, but unknowingly, he joined a group of “bad boys” and to-date regrets it. The group peddled drugs and destroyed his future. He dropped out of school while in Form Two. “I did not know they were taking drugs. They told me to sniff something that looked like wheat flour. I resisted. They told me it was good stuff and could help me be alert and pass examinations,” he narrates.

Lethal tablets

Momanyi says after resisting, one of the friends brought him two tablets and convinced him that they would improve appetite for food.

Little did he know these were hard drugs that would define his future. “I felt dizzy and sleepy for over three days. I later became energetic and wanted to fight everybody. I felt like a drunkard,” he says.

The group of five boys became his best friends and enjoyed the snuffs almost each day. But his school life became turbulent.

“I started getting used to drugs. I remember they could put the flour between fingernails and sniff it but later, needles were introduced. I could not differentiate the types. I took them though to please my friends,” he recounts. He later he became abrasive and abused a female teacher who reported him to the principal and that was the beginning of more trouble.  He was on and off school and differed with almost every teacher and spent most days at home. His frustrated mother refused to pay school fees and matters deteriorated to the present state.

Early this week, a teenager approached some journalists in Nyeri town with an appeal. He was begging for money to help him raise fare to go to his Nairobi home.

According to the student, he had been sent home to pick his parents after he was accused of sneaking out of school. But the disconnect in his story is that he was suspended over the weekend, but he did not go home immediately, until three days after.He is a Form Three student at a school in Nakuru County, and he also decided to travel opposite direction to Nyeri instead of taking the direct route to his home.“I was suspended but decided to stay for some two days in Kikopei area (the famous meat hub along Nairobi-Nakuru highway). I had money and so we went to take booze (alcohol) with my friends,” he said. The boy had decided to spend what was left of the money he was given by his mother on alcohol.

“I take beer and smoke. I started when I was in Form One,” said the teenager, who hails from Githurai area in Nairobi.

He admitted that he is used to sneaking out of school and that he and his classmates buy cigarettes in shops near the school and smuggle them to school. Nicholas Gathemia, the Central Kenya Primary School Heads Association chairman, said drug abuse has hit uncontrollable levels in schools.

—Stories by Patrick Beja, Naftali Makori, Job Weru and Murimi Mwangi