Nigel Kunaka, PSH Marketing Manager
BY MUNYARADZI BLESSING DOMA in KADOMA
The Population Solutions for Health (PSH) with support from the Embassy of Sweden, is supporting the government’s fight against drug and substance use, through The Strength Is In You campaign.
Through this campaign, PSH is creating a movement that discourages drug use behaviour, as well as reducing demand for drugs.
And the aim is also to capacitate young people with skills and knowledge to resist drug use.
This was heard during a media training organised by the Zimbabwe Gender Commission (ZGC) with support from PSH in Kadoma.
The training focused on Gender Based Violence (GBV), Child Marriages and Drug and Substance Abuse.
“The response to The Strength Is In You Campaign has been overwhelming, the truth is that the drug and substance issue is big and we have noticed that definitely everyone has a part to blame.
“So we are just supporting the efforts of government playing our part, supporting the Ministry of Health and Child Care and other relevant line ministries in curbing this problem,” said Nigel Kunaka, PSH Marketing Manager, who leads implementation of The Strength Is In You anti-drug campaign.
Kunaka added: “the campaign is a multi-media campaign being implemented by the Population Solutions for Health and supported by the Embassy of Sweden.
“What we are trying to do is to create a movement where we discourage drug use behaviour as well as reducing demand for drugs.
“We want to capacitate young people with skills and knowledge to resist drug use. We believe that if we come together as a nation, we can end this problem of drug and substance use.”
Kunaka added that from a mass media perspective, they are on radio and digital media which has a national coverage.
“And on community level, we are currently operating in Mabvuku, Tafara, Budiriro and Glen View.
“We have community health workers who are also conducting community dialogue to capacitate the young people on how to resist drugs, as well as the knowledge on the effects of drug and substance use.
“There are intentions to cascade the campaign to other areas, we are hoping that if can demonstrate impact with the current funding that we have, we will be to expand to other areas as well.
“We have got a lot of success stories to date of people who have actually benefitted and I’m not just talking about people who use drugs, but I’m also talking care givers,” added Kunaka.
He added that the project started in January 2023 and will run up to December 2025.
