Around the world, Rwandans inclusive, people often see the more destructive side of addiction, drug crime, victims slumped and family members spiraling downward. Less visible are the people who survive the illness to rebuild their lives. 29-year-old Sabina Uwamahoro is one of the many who was previously caught in the grips of addiction but continues to live in recovery, helping and inspiring others along the way. At a tender age of eight, Uwamahoro was left with no parent, but a little sister and grandmother. “I knew that life would never be the same the day my father died”, she says. “With all the pain and hurt of losing a father and having your mother leave you, I found myself stranded and confused,” she added. Uwamahoro, now a mother of three, could go on to complete her Primary school education, despite failing to advance to the next level of education due to poor performance. In pursuit of making a living, she decided to look for a low-paying job. “I would fetch three jerry cans of water for a wealthy family and get paid Rwf100, making it three thousand” she added. After realizing that the money was not enough, Uwamahoro says that she was lured into a group of friends, who later introduced “the easy way” of getting money. “I started drinking alcohol and could find myself in bed with men as a result, I remember the first day, I was afraid of going home so I went to spend the night with my elder sister who was married at the time”, she asserted. Life took a bumpy turn while at her sister’s home, after being impregnated by the same man. “My sister’s husband got me pregnant, I could not bear the shame of betraying my own sister so I decided to find somewhere else to live and that is when my life became so hard and challenging,” she said in a choking voice. “I went to live with my friends that we always shared alcohol and it had gotten to a point where just one sip of alcohol(beer) would be enough for me to be in bed with a man” With the stakes of her children, Uwamahoro says she wanted to stop substance consumption, in a bid to regain her life. Uwamahoro lost nearly a decade to addiction, relapsing repeatedly. It was a terrifying time for her and the children. The grim toll, however, obscures an important and hopeful fact. “After quite some time, I heard a fellow addict talking about Purpose Rwanda and joined it because from what i had heard from my friend, I could be helped and turned into someone with a meaningful life, far from a drug and sex addict” she said. A local organization, Purpose Rwanda aims at tackling delinquency and addictions among Rwandan citizens. I realized that I could survive without drinking alcohol or using any drug substance at all, Uwamahoro added. For her, it was through the different recovery programmes at Purpose Rwanda, that has given her a silver lining. “I want to tell other addicts that it is possible to stop using drugs and survive without them,” says Sabina. The organization has various programmes like counseling (individual or group), interaction sessions to mention but a few, which help addiction patients to recover from their addiction. As it stands, Uwamahoro highlighted that she has managed to ensure that all the three children go to school and acquire knowledge together with providing the basic needs that they need. Like Uwamahoro, Jean-Bosco Simpunga’s life had been taken by substance use disorder, until 2020 when he found his inner strength to join Purpose Rwanda. “It seemed as though I had no life until then,” Simpunga narrates. The 36-year-old says 20 years of addiction saw him consuming different drugs including weed, heroin, cigarettes, alcohol and behavioral addiction to theft and rape. “I lived on the streets from 1998 after losing my parents in 1995,” Simpunga said. Loss of parents appears on the list of factors responsible for today’s big number of the youth that have engaged in drug use and bad behaviors. “Losing all my parents was the doorway to me using drugs and engaging in all sorts of bad behaviors of theft. Given that, I was a child living on the streets, I could not see any other way of survival other than indulging in theft,” he explained. “I was in jail from 2014 to 2016, over cases of theft, rape and drug abuse, and could still have access to heroin because that was a point of having relapses upon the failure to get it.” “I could not realize that taking drugs had become a habit to me in such a way that my emotional being depended on drug consumption. That is addiction”, he narrates. In 2017, Simpunga was transferred to Iwawa Rehabilitation Center- one of the national rehabilitation services- for the similar cases including theft, consumption of drugs, and rape. “In June 2020, that is when I heard about Purpose Rwanda and gained full hope of drawing away from my addiction to drugs and behaviors such as theft”, he added. “Purpose Rwanda has facilitated my recovery from addiction in various ways through different services like counseling that they provide to ensure we also recover and discover the purposeful meaning of our lives.” Simpunga through facilitation from Purpose Rwanda, is now a business man at Remera Market, and he says he is able to provide for his family of two sons and their mother. Simpunga also hinted at the idea of the current chain of drug-dealers who continue to lure young people into the vice. “Drug dealers are still there in Kigali; more awareness needs to be done to fully eradicate the use of drugs”. Need to raise drinking age While it has not been officially linked, concerns have recently emerged that alcohol consumption largely deteriorates mental health of young people, leading to cases such as depression among the youth. Against this background, officials recently suggested raising the legal drinking age to 21 years, up from the current 18 years of age.
