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Some of the hardcore addicts in Nairobi are showing hope of a transformed life after a charity found them a new hobby – washing cars.
Dozens of young men and women in the grip of deadly drug addiction in Kawangware – Kenya’s worst drug town – are slowly recovering. But for a typical Nairobian with no experience of druggies, they seem wasted.
During a tour of Kawangware, The Nairobian met several emaciated young men who were high on heroin or bhang while others were enthusiastically washing matatus.
The encounter with the addicts was shocking even to this writer as some had blisters, and infected wounds because of years of injecting drugs into their bodies with dirty syringes.
But an organisation in Kawangware told The Nairobian there is progress in the drug town.
Dagoretti Youth Welfare Organisation (DYWO) told The Nairobian the young men and women addicts are not as badly off as they were in the past years.
DYWO has rescued about 30 young people, but the headache for the organisation is how to keep them off drugs.
“Something urgent has to be done or else we will lose many young men here due to consumption of drugs and spread of the deadly Aids disease,” Hadisi Ramadhan, DYWO’s board chairman told The Nairobian.
Ramadhan said that DYWO wants to keep the addicts busy through activities such as washing cars but does not have enough funds.
At the organisation’s rehab centre, DYWO has set up an open-air car wash bay, which is popular since there is regular traffic on Kawangware’s Route 46.
According to aid workers and religious leaders at Kawangware, majority of young people using drugs live at Msalaba village, near Kawangware Primary School.
The high consumption of drugs through injection by the youth, who are between 15 and 35 years, had in the past years led to the increase in crimes in Kawangware.
Ramadhan said the organisation’s greatest fear is not only that crime has soared as a result of the rise in number of drug addicts but also the fear of sexually transmitted infections.
According to reports by NGOs, Kawangware tops in the number of people being infected with Aids through drug injection followed by Malindi and Mombasa in Kenya
