Paynesville City – The WAT Foundation Liberia, over the weekend launched an anti-drug awareness campaign in Paynesville, under the theme ‘Help WATFOL Fight Against Drug Abuse in Liberia’.
Report by Augustine T. Tweh – [email protected]
In an interview with FrontPage Africa, the Chief Executive officer, Watta Holwes said the awareness is intended to sensitize the young people of Liberia to do away with taking in harmful substances like drug (Marijuana, Cocaine), something she said is damaging the future leaders of the country.
“This is a national awareness on drugs addiction in Liberia. We found out that over the past three years, our youths who supposed to take over this nation are perishing from this deadly demonic drugs, so we decided to undertake this national awareness to discourage our children from taking drugs,” she said.
“We will not stop, but to move from community to community, and from county to county. We want to make sure that people have the sense to know that something is killing us in this country, especially the youths of this nation.”
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the WAT’s Foundation Liberia added that there are smart youth who are addicted to narcotic substances due to certain circumstances and are needed in society for their own contribution to move the country forward, but are abandoned, neglected and called Zogos.
“Right now if you go to the ghettos, you will realize that we have college graduates, and technical people who are perishing from drugs, but nobody wants to know. So we feel within ourselves that there is a need to come out and fight drugs abuse through awareness campaign,” she averred.
Madam Holwes added that since the establishment of the foundation, about one hundred addicts have been taken from the streets and have been transformed.
“Since the establishment of this organization, I have seen a lot of changes in the lives of drugs addicts who I have taken from the street with the little that I have spent. Taking drugs addicts from the street is very challenging, especially for the women.
When the women take in drugs, they are sexually abused, and when we take them from the street they demand too much from us, and we will keep begging them to accept the little we have” she added.
She lamented that the government is responsible for the huge quantity of drugs in the country, something she attributed to its failure to provide protection for the citizens.
“I blame the national government because the national government is our pillow in this country. They need to put some mechanism into place to make sure that the borders and airports are well secure, to keep drugs from entering in the country.
If you travel to other countries, the moment you enter the airport you will see dog coming to smell you to know whether you have drugs or other dangerous substance, but Liberia nothing like that can happen. We could live in other land, but we love our country, so the government needs to do better to stop the importation of drugs” Madam Holwes asserted.
She used the occasion to call on all well-meaning Liberians, government officials, NGOs to help support the organization fight drugs abuse to make Liberia free.
“We been going around asking for help to extend our awareness campaign throughout Liberia, but nobody wants to help. We been to the Ministry of Health, Drugs Enforcement Agency, among others, but they told us to wait, up to now we are still waiting.
Our aim now is to have a center in Montserrado County to help get our citizens from the suppression of drugs. Don’t stand aside and watch the lives of our children get destroyed, each drug addict could be your son, daughter, brother, sister, mother or father or it could be you.” she added.
For his part, Adonis W. Miantona, a former drug addict and beneficiary of the WAT’S Foundation expressed gratitude to the Foundation for its humanitarian role in his life; something he said is worth supporting.
“I am proud of the WAT’s Foundation right now, and I am proud of this awareness campaign, not just that, but I have been incorporated in the WAT’S Foundation as the Ground Counselor at the Cotton Tree.
Yes I was once a drug addict use to be in the ELWA community, and if you talk about value and everything that is important to a normal man, I had none. I was a university student when I became a drug addict and felt flat to nothing, but it was through the WAT’S Foundation that today my life is saved” he said.
In an interview, Miantona told FrontPageAfrica that he became a drug addict through peer pressure; upon his transformation he discovered that peer pressure is not the problem, but the lack of self-discovery is the problem.
“Usually people attribute the taking in of drugs to peer pressure, as it is truth that I got initiated in it by a friend. But for me, after my transformation I realized that it’s not peer pressure problem, but self-discovery is the problem.
If a person discovers knows the true essence in life, why God sent them into the world, which value, that purpose owed to them, nothing can encourage you to be a drug addict. Nobody can pull you in a direction that you are not heading, but if a person has not discovered himself, yes of course peer pressure will be a question,” he added.
Miantona told FrontPage Africa that he is currently writing a book based on his experience in the street as a drug addict, before being rescued by the WAT’S Foundation.
“I am now experiencing a massive change in my life since I was taken from the street as a drug addict. I am currently writing a book base on my experiences in the street, and my testimony.
There has been a real change in my life, because I used to be and I am still a musician. At the time, I did a song Title, Country boy trying to Survive, but all of those things I used to do, when I became a drug addict, I felt down flat, losing everything, but now I am regaining everything back through the help of the WAT’S Foundation.”
The WAT’S Foundation is a non- profitable organization which was established in 2012, through the self-initiative and vision of Deacon Watta Holwes. The aim of the organization is to curtail the number of drugs addict in Liberia, in making Liberia free and safe from dangerous substances.