SUNDAY 10 September at 18:30 on SABC 2:
In
Fokus:
“THE
DEATH OF INNOCENCE …”
Mark is 16 years old. No school wants him because he’s a
recovering drug addict. He started experimenting with drugs at the age of
10, needing to forget the ugliness of a home fraught with physical and
emotional abuse. To finance his expensive habit, he even sold drugs – often
to primary school children. Mark’s mother, Tanya, only discovered his habit
2 years ago.
 13
year old Claire is recovering from a brief stint with crystal
methamphetamine – or tik. She’s paid dearly for her experiment: she’s been
expelled from school and bears the physical scars of cutting her wrists
repeatedly.
Capt. Jan Combrinck of the SAPS says Mark and Claire are no
exceptions: children between the ages of 7 and 11 are experimenting with
drugs. And the Medical Research Council say children no longer experiment
with dagga only … they often start off with tik, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy
and LSD. The results are tragic: a neurologist says he’s treating youngsters
who have suffered strokes and seizures as a result of cocaine addiction.
According to the MRC, a school that claims it has no problems
with drugs, is a school without pupils. Two former model-C high schools in
Gauteng reluctantly admitted to Focus that some learners are using drugs. At
the primary school where Mark claims he sold drugs to other pupils, Focus
got a flat denial of any drug problem.
 Boredom,
curiosity, peer pressure and poor role models are some of the reasons why
children experiment with drugs. But the MRC as well as the SAPS say
parents’ involvement in their children’s lives is crucial to inform and warn
them of the dangers of drugs. Dropping your child off at a shopping centre
with a wad of pocket money, may be the worst thing you could do. Mark and
Claire have identified two of Gauteng’s premier shopping centres as drug
havens.
Focus producer Karin d’Orville and cameraman Byron Taylor’s
report on teenage drug use, tells the story of youngsters craving for
release and to be “cool” – a release they find in drugs at a very young age.
It’s a report parents can’t afford to miss, this Sunday on Focus at 18:30
only on SABC2.
AND …
 The
“karretjie” people have been living next to gravel roads between farms -
mainly in the Karoo - for many years. As sheep shearers they traveled with
their donkey carts from farm to farm during the shearing season. They owned
very little and never had their own houses. Camping on the side of the road
on their way to a farm was a way of life.
But mechanized shearing methods have made the “karretjie”
people and their services obsolete. Many of them have been forced to eke out
an existence on the side of the road outside Colesberg and near Cradock.
Fokus producer Keith Sayster and cameraman Gerhard Botes visited the
“karretjie” community and tell their story. |
