Around 50 Azapo and PAC members gathered in Extension 4 on Wednesday 21 March to mark Human Rights Day with a drug-abuse awareness campaign.
“Drugs are destroying our children,” said Zingisile Zake, secretary for youth development on Azapo’s PEC. “They are being used as agents to sell drugs. Drugs are destroying our future leaders.”
Zake said their aim was to help unite the community against drug sources and agents.
“These people are hiding behind the community,” Zake said. “We need the police to assist in finding them and rooting them out – but also for the community to co-operate in exposing them. Not as informers, but to co-operate.
“For a few, drugs provide and income; but for others, drugs kill them.”
Zake said they encouraged youth to engage in cultural and sporting activities to avoid the drug trap, and should themselves become leaders in those activities.
Zake also spoke about the origins of Human Rights Day, the Sharpeville Massacre, that left 69 people dead after a protest against apartheid pass laws.
“They call it Human Rights Day – but we don’t want to forget what happened,” Zake said.
