PROJECT PROPOSAL

Save Me Rehabilitation Center In Gambia

Concept on Drug and Alcohol abuse among youths in Gambia

Drug and substance abuse is a problem that countries throughout the world have had to contend with for centuries. Globally, UNODC estimates that between 155 and 250 million people, or 3.5% to 5.7% of the population aged 15-64, had used illicit substances at least once in the previous year (World Drug Report, 2014). Drug addiction has been a rising problem in Gambia for several years, as hard substances, such as heroin, are moved from Asia to Europe via West Africa, often stopping in Gambian hands.

"Foday Jawla, Acting Matron at Gambia’s only psychiatric hospital Tanka Tanka, has disclosed that almost 80 percent of recorded cases of mental disorders registered at the hospital are related to drug use. He said the continuous use of stringent and stiff laws to control the use of drugs is not paying the needed dividend and thus the need to pursue alternative means of drug control in The Gambia." 

Jawla made this disclosure in an exclusive interview with The Chronicle at his offices at Sukuta Salagi, where he also said Tanka Tanka is so far the only hope for persons with mental disorders living in The Gambia.

“If you go through the history of the patients we admit here in Tanka Tanka, almost 80 percent of them have drug related problems. So I can say the most common type of mental disorder we have here in Gambia is called drug induced psychosis,” Acting Matron Foday Jawla revealed.

The Government of The Gambia recognizes the dangers/problems of a society that large number of its youth population is drug and substance abusers. The treatment centers do not seem to offer entrepreneurial trainings to the addicts but only clinical and psychological interventions.

Equally, there are no frameworks to support the rehabilitated individuals in terms of enterprise development skills to get back to normal lives in most rehabs, thus making them dependant on their families and the community at large.

The proposed project will focus on addressing the entrepreneurship training and enterprise development gaps among the rehabilitated individuals in The Gambia with the aim of ensuring that, rehabilitated individuals are trained on entrepreneurship skills, facilitated to access mobilize and access business start-up capital in order to be independent and be beneficial to society thereby making them have gainful self employment.

By implementing this project, SAVE ME REHABILITATION CENTER ORGANIZATION will train quite a number of youths who are drug and alcohol addicts  in order to provide them with entrepreneurial skills.

In the one year project period, this will result in 50 enterprises and 250 jobs. SAVE ME REHABILITATION CENTER  will work closely with the key stakeholders at National and International Government levels as well as with development partners in order to realize the objectives of the proposed project. 

After one year of piloting the project in The Gambia, the ambition is to turn the project into a pay for success contract model and scale it up into other affected areas facing similar problem by identifying donors and investors for the innovation.