Summit for drug recovering dependents set

NAGA CITY --- Listening to testimonies of recovering drug dependents (RDDs) and sharings of treatment facilities, one of the struggles of healing is the full reintegration to society. Majority succumb to relapse despite the completion of required rehabilitation modules. Thus, the Family Ministry in Caceres proposed a partnership with the Local Government Unit of Naga to undertake a summit with service providers and the RDDs with their families. Armed with the Ministry’s goal to help strengthen the basic unit of society, the activity aims at identifying the best practices, as well as the shortcomings of programs. A targeted outcome, therefore, is a convergent effort among these service providers toward implementing solutions to gaps in full recovery. The summit “Turuwang sa Pusog na Pagbangon” is set on November 30 at the Holy Rosary Major Seminary. The morning consists of inputs from resource persons from the Naga City Dangerous Drugs Board (NCDDB), the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), the Camarines Sur Treatment and Rehabilitation Center (CSTRC), Bantay Familia, Fazenda de Esperanza, and Narcotics Anonymous (NA). These inputs together with the responses from the RDDs and their families, will be processed in workshop sessions in the afternoon facilitated by volunteer Guidance Counselors from the Ateneo de Naga University. As a highlight of the event, Mayor John G. Bongat and Fr. William J. Santiago will lead the ceremonial submission of outputs from the participants. A second phase of the activity is the drawing-up of a Memorandum of Understanding among the participating stakeholders to implement the next steps. The City of Naga, with its various institutions supporting the “war on drugs”, upholds Arch. Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle’s expression of faith, that the ex-drug addicts are “not a hopeless case”.