The National Centre for Voluntary and Community-based Treatment Service and Rehabilitation for Drug Addicts based in Preah Sihanouk province’s Stung Hav district on October 22 launched the first vocational training course to equip addicts with skills before their reintegration back into society.
Veth Valda, director of the Ministry of Interior’s National Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Drug Addicts who attended the opening of the course, told The Post on October 25 that the first training session was launched in collaboration with relevant institution.
“In this first session, we trained 50 drug victims who have been rehabilitated. In this term, we will train them in agriculture, including growing cash crops, and service training in building wiring skills and repairing air conditioning equipment,” he said.
“For the second term, we will train another 70 people in fish and frog farming, welding and working with limestone. So this training course will have two steps. The training can be short-term or long-term depending on the skill. The agricultural course takes one week and the service course takes four months,” he said.
According to Valda, the training aims to provide drug addicts with skills and a profession to earn a livelihood so they will not return to drug use when returning to their community or family.
He said this centre complies with national and international standards and has three major institutions contributing to the cause – Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation; Ministry of Health; and Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training.
He said the social affairs ministry provides rehabilitation services, education, counseling and life skills to drug addicts, while the health ministry offered medical services, and the labour ministry provides vocational training on skills for a career.
“The general principle is that we accept addicts from centres across Cambodia for training. However, acceptance depends on the centre sending them here. We also receive addicts from prosecutors, parents, guardians, families and other authorities,” he said.
Pheng Ny, director of the Polytechnic Institute in Preah Sihanouk province, said the labour ministry has allowed the institute to cooperate with the provincial drug treatment centre in providing short-term technical skills in agriculture and services under the project modernisation of vocational and technical education system 2021 for drug victims.
“We will work hard to support the initial operation of the centre’s first training session to be successful as planned,” he said.
Thou Sun, social affairs ministry secretary of state who attended the opening of the training programme, called on participants to master the skills and become good citizens and useful to families and communities.
