Drug Advice Support Featured in Business Times

With the Drug Advice Support (DAS) service growing and so much more people to reach we once again featured in a prominent South African News Paper The Business Times yesterday. The article titled "MXit put to some good use" written by Toby ShapShak can be read below:

MXIT, the cellphone instant messaging service best known for chatting teenagers, is now being used to help drug users on the Cape Flats kick their habit.
In the service, based in Bridgetown in Athlone, former drug users who counsel tik addicts use the messaging service as a primary method of support.
The project, which has been running for about a year, is the brainchild of a remarkable young man, Marlon Parker.
Parker, now an information technology lecturer at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology where he’s doing his PhD, grew up on the Cape Flats and directly experienced the consequences of drug abuse when his brother was jailed for dealing tik, a highly-addictive methamphetamine drug.
Drug users can “chat” with the services’ counsellors when they feel the urge to use, says Parker. It is the first step in a rehabilitation programme run with nongovernmental organisation Impact Direct. Read more