Written by: Samkele Sokhela

The Urban Futures Centre held an event on Sunday at the Durban University of Technology’s City Campus which aimed at providing support for drug addicts.

UFC is an organisation associated with the DUT that helps in finding new solutions to problems, and they do so by collaborating with those most affected by the complexities that characterise urban spaces.

Attendees included drug addicts, different parties from various departments, pastors, actors and police

The slogan of the event was, Support, Don’t Punish.

DUT Professor Monique Marks from UFC who was part of the organisers, challenged government to intervene by giving addicts the support they need and stated that fighting drugs should be given the same attention as that of HIV/AIDS.

“Let’s put money into skills development, integration projects, into creating creativity spaces where people (addicts) should be creative,” said Marks.

The event is said to be happening in over 150 cities around the world, with Durban and Cape Town being the only cities to host it in South Africa.

*Caption: Drug addict, Davids sharing his story to other addicts during the event.