Truth About Drugs Gives Life Coach the Tools to Reach Kids

South African Life Coach helps youth make decisions based on facts, not pro-drug propaganda.

Siyanqoba is the Xhosa word for “overcome” or “conquer.” It is also the name chosen by life coach Antoinette Mbenenge for the work she is doing tackling drug abuse in the schools of Gauteng province South Africa.

Mbenenge finds drug-abusing celebrities set a bad example for children. “If they want to achieve something in their lives, these youth feel they need to use drugs,” she says.

Determined to get through to youngsters before they became drug “statistics,” Mbenenge searched online for a program that would help her and in 2015 found the Foundation for a Drug-Free World.

Thrilled with the quality of the Truth About Drugs materials on the Foundation’s website, she ordered an Education Package, studied it and began using the program’s booklets and videos in her work in local schools. She has reached some 6,000 South Africans, delivering the Truth About Drugs presentations to churches, schools and rehab centers throughout Gauteng Province.

Mbenenge often hears from teachers that students have been transformed by her presentations. They are thrilled that there is a solution to the crippling epidemic of drug abuse, she says.

One prime example was a 12-year-old boy addicted to sniffing glue. After a presentation Mbenenge made at his school, his teacher approached her for help. Mbenenge gave the Truth About Drugs booklets to the boy’s mother and showed her how to use them to walk him through the short- and long-term effects of the drug he was using. The boy’s mother told her he has given up his habit and is focused on becoming a world-class football player.

“I plan to travel the world, reaching out to young people everywhere with this powerful program to give them real facts so they can make wise decisions and live drug-free,” says Mbenenge, whose new slogan is “Drugs Must Fall” in South Africa. “Lies have been spread all around and now it is time for us to spread the truth.”

The Church of Scientology and its members support the Foundation for a Drug-Free World, whose Truth About Drugs campaign is one of the world’s largest nongovernmental drug education and prevention initiatives. According to the United Nations Office on Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, “Every dollar spent on prevention can save governments up to ten dollars in later costs.”