Over 40 young drug addicts registered for rehabilitation during the launch of the police’s child protection project in Lethabile this week.

The police’s national Visible Policing unit in collaboration with Letlhabile police launched a child protection pilot project at the Letlhabile shopping complex on Friday with the aim of placing drug addicts into various rehabilitation centres, removing children from the streets, and encouraging school dropouts to complete matric.

The programme is a multidisciplinary initiative that involves Community Policing Forum members (CPF), the Department of Social Development, Madibeng Local Municipality, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), local spiritual leaders, ward councillors as well as Letlhabile Taxi Association. The initiative wants to address the plight of destitute children and collectively devise mechanisms to assist them.

“A total of 42 drug addicts were voluntarily registered to undergo a rehabilitation process by the Department of Social Development and Kutullo NGO,” said police spokesperson Maria Nkabinde. The programme will run for a year to ensure sustainability.