‘Hope and Beyond’ acknowledges that their is need to launch a study to investigate why the number is increasing.
When they opened in 2011, “the facility had 60 children and in 2014, the number had grown to 300 and this year over 600 have gone through the institute.”
“Our statistics show that Kampala and Western Uganda have the highest number of children addicted to alcohol and drugs which include; tobacco, cocain, kuber and marijuana, but the good news is that they are responding to treatment appropriately,” David Kalema the executive director of ‘Hope and Beyond’ told journalists on Wednesday.
This year, Mr Kalema published a report on perspectives on alcohol addiction among alcohol treatment providers and service users in Uganda and Belgium. In this, he unveiled “Drugs-education prevention and policy.”
Mr Kalema told journalists “the approach they are using to reverse addiction is different from that in government hospitals which is borrowed from Britain, because alcohol consumption in Uganda has cultural attachment unlike in United Kingdom where it is associated with peer pressure.”
‘Hope and Beyond’ has partnered with experts from Belgium based University, Wouter Vanderplasschen of Ghent “to conduct the research because even in Belgium, they are facing the similar challenge and they are wondering how Hope and Beyond has managed to achieve such results.”
