Reach out Monitoring and Evaluation Officer Faizah Hamid during a sensitization forum about the ‘Sister to sister’ health program to female drug users. [Photo/Maxwell]
Over 200 female drug users in Mombasa County will benefit from a new program launched by an anti-drug lobby based at the Coast Reachout Centre Trust.
The program which will ensure the female drug users receive a hygiene pack and other humanitarian aid suitable for women has launched over two years ago and expanded after demand for the hygiene pack increased among female drug uses.
Speaking at the Reachout Centre trust offices in Oldtown, Mombasa on Saturday, the Organization’s Monitoring, and Evaluation officer Ms. Faizah Hamid said that the hygiene pack gives female drug users two panties every month, sanitary towels, bathing and washing soaps every month.
“We also provide washing soaps so that they clean their clothes, toothbrush, and toothpaste together with a comb within the hygiene pack,” she said.
She said that since female drug users had special needs compared to their male counterparts, the organization launched a monthly awareness clinic so that counselors discuss with the drug users on how they can disentangle themselves from the menace.
“The program is known as ‘Sister to sister’ and is meant to highlight problems facing female drug users in the region and chat the way forward on how we can tackle them,” she added.
Faizah said that the organization has reached more than 10,000 drugs users whereby 600 are female users within Mombasa County.
She added that they maintained a total of 178 female drug users who frequently visit their offices for hygiene services where they are given washing and bathing facilities, offered counseling services, health checkups before given the hygiene pack.
Some of these users suffer cervical cancer and other reproductive health-related disorders though they are not aware, that is why we invite health specialists to examine them.
She, however, said that the services are not only benefiting Mombasa county drug users but other female drug users from as far as Nairobi, Dar-es-Salaam, Garissa, Kwale, Kilifi and Lamu counties.
Faizah appealed to well-wishers, health experts, and the government to assist the organization and specifically the Sister to sister program so that they help more female drug users to quit drugs.
Elizabeth Sarah, a 33-year-old and mother of three is one of the beneficiaries of the ‘Sister to sister’ program and she has quit drugs.
“I am a proud woman, I stopped abusing heroin two years ago despite being an addict for 9 years, I thank Reachout Centre Trust and specifically the Sister to sister female anti-drug program.