Buchanan, Grand Bassa County – Senator Nyonblee Kangar-Lawrence has initiated a rehabilitation program for drug users in the County as a means of transforming their lives, while promising to propose a bill for establishment of a rehabilitation center in the country.
Sen. Kangar-Lawrence said young people who are now notoriously known as drug addicts were not born to be the way they are, but their situation is due to factors like peer pressure.
Many drug users, who are mostly young people, roam the streets of cities in the country after abandoning their respective homes. Some are found in ghettos and are often accused by community dwellers of committing misdemeanors.
And the Grand Bassa County Senator says it is important to help these wayward youth in order to change their lives rather than referring to them as outcasts and stigmatizing them. This, she said, will serve as a motivation for them to be rehabilitated.
“I will meet with you people every weekend that I spent in Grand Bassa County because I want you to change and be good people in this society we are living in today,” she said, after donating LD$50,000 and 50 gallons of diesel fuel to help them start a business.
Speaking during a dinner with troubled youth at the Buchanan City Hall, Karnga-Lawrence disclosed she will setup a home for the first 10 ‘Zogos’ who are willing to be rehabilitated and she also vowed to personally help the only female drug user attending the program.
She said those admitted in the home will be feed on a daily basis and will received vocational skills training which will enable them to earn money on their own instead of endangering their lives by committing crimes.
The lawmaker said she “wants Grand Bassa County to be a model county”; hence she will be introducing a bill at the Legislature for the establishment of a rehabilitation center for drug users in the country.
“When I was contesting as senator, one of the major things in my platform was to help transform the lives of the young people in Grand Bassa County, so this is another,” she said.
She told them that they were not “born to be drug user or criminal,” but the lack of jobs and rehabilitation center are factors that need to be addressed by the Government of Liberia.
She also blamed the government for failing to put in place measures to improve the livelihood of young people including ‘Zogos’.
“It is saddening to see young citizens of Liberia who should be making some difference in the society being in a deplorable state that has given them names that they don’t deserve,” she lamented.
Although the Liberty Party senator claims her action is non-political, her move comes after recent statements by her party’s political leader, Cllr. Charles Walker Brumskine, that if elected his government will use the Armed Forces of Liberia as a vehicle to assist with the development of the country.
“We will establish auxiliary units such as the agriculture and engineering battalions, and in the medical department, in which Zogos and other troubled youth, as well as average young Liberians who may so desire, to be trained as carpenters, painters, masons, electricians, plumbers, and farmers,” Cllr. Brumskine said.
Elton Wroinbee Tiah, FPA Contributor