 I-254, IMAGIN Good evening and thank you for joining us on Y-254 news. My name is Patricia Muriuki and tonight we talk about the drug abuse manats. And with me in the studio is Gilbat Shikwe, Sayla Zochieno, Founders of initiative called Zoe Zimtahani. And drug abuse is one of the biggest problems confronting Kenya, especially among the young people, incident of drug abuse and related antisocial behavior have increased in recent years, which is a matter of concern in the society. Talk to Razro, social media platforms, that is our hashtag Y-254, sorry, that is our Y-254 channel at on Twitter, hashtag Y-254 news and Y-254 channel on Facebook. You can be part of this conversation, so feel free to ask any questions that you may have. This is a, Zoe Zimtahani is an initiative whereby they are hoping they are going to engage young people in activities such as team building, they are going to have canceling to make sure that they try to eradicate the use of drugs, which has become a problem in Kenya and even in other nations. Thank you very much guys for joining us and to start with you Sayla, tell us more about Zoe Zimtahani, like what does this, what does this all mean until? Zoe Zimtahani is an initiative that came up just, we are like three of us, like Bobby used to be an addict, he used to drink a lot, use substance a lot, so he lost a lot of jobs, he is a physical trainer, a certified trainer, so as he was recovering, he decided to look for a job, so we decided, we start from tan, you start small, when you recover you go big, so at that point is when the idea came, yes. Okay, so for you Gilbat probably, what would you say, because for someone to start using drugs, whether it's the soft or the hard drugs, this is probably something that pushes you, this is a trigger that triggers you to go and indulge in alcohol, so what's for you was the cause of your drug abuse? Thank you for having me, well for me it started as a curiosity, I wanted to experiment, so from experimenting and then company, the people that I had around me who were using substance and then before I knew it, I was hooked and then I couldn't get out of it. So tell us about your recovery journey, for someone who is out there is struggling with drug abuse and they want to stop it but they are finding it very hard because they make the decision to stop it and their friends are still using it, so would you tell your story briefly to someone who is out there so that they can get some inspiration? Okay, for me first of all after like Sila has just mentioned, I lost a lot, I lost jobs, I lost a marriage, I lost houses and then also started affecting my health, then I got tired, I got tired to a point I felt like I can't do this no more, so I came to an end of myself, so at that point is when I met my friends, first of all I went down on my knees and prayed to go to help me overcome this addiction, he intervened, then what next from there after quitting, that's when my friend and others came in, so using what I had before which is fitness, we thought we can use it to engage instead of just being idle, so we used fitness to overcome the addiction, to feel the void, so that way and then I chose the right company just being with the right kind of people, fitness enthusiasts and avoiding the other companies, stuff like that. So for you Silas what motivated you to give your time to invest in this initiative, what was your greatest motivation behind this? You see, first for me to come up and ask to start this thing, you can either be affected directly or indirectly, so like Bobby was affected directly, me I was affected indirectly, my dad was an alcoholic, I have cousins, I have brothers, I have friends who are alcoholic, so I was surrounded with people drink alcohol, do weed, do drugs, add stuff, so in to avoid this thing of nipati e 10 bop, nipati e 20 bop, when you achieve to to perform those things, so we come up with this initiative, you try work out, you be thin, so that that time you go sleep, you wake up, you are sober, you can do something for yourself. I'm quite sure before you guys started your initiative, you went out and trying to get information of why do people abuse drugs, why will someone prefer to smoke cigarettes while someone prefer to take alcohol, so what are some of the causes that you guys were able to find out? Pia pressure, bad company, stress, jobless, what else, idleness, so now we're having a very big problem and a very big challenge in our country right now, where most young people say they do not have jobs and there have been initiatives, there have been issues whereby people want to try to help them secure jobs because by helping them secure jobs then they get them out of crimes and out of drugs, so you guys decided that people are going to join you for fitness and everything, so what made you go for fitness and not any other thing, why not motivate people to go to Ria, why not motivate people to have focus groups where they can talk, why fitness, why do you think fitness is going to work? We are an expert in fitness, I've been a fitness instructor for more than 20 years so I've been doing rehabilitation exercises to help people, I've been doing team buildings to help organizations, so we decided why not where we came from because that's where we started, if we can't do it where we started then proceed, the generation behind us then it will be no more, that's how this thing came up. Okay and why fitness, why did you guys choose to go with fitness for you Gilbert, why did you choose to go with fitness and not maybe talk to someone and register them in a rehabilitation center where they're going to stay there for a couple of weeks and these totally people talking to them and everything, what makes you be convinced that a young person or someone out there will want to come and work out and be convinced that working out is going to take the time that I would use in abusing drugs. Okay we chose fitness because that's what we got, that's what we have, there are other channels many other channels so we thought we should approach it where we have the strength, so our strength is fitness, that's where we have the expertise okay, now fitness gives you a high, the same high you get from drugs okay, the release of endorphin it gives you that feel good is the same stuff you get from drugs, so we thought it can be an alternative okay, so we encourage people to engage in fitness instead of doing drugs okay and there are other benefits also, there are other benefits you get from fitness apart from feeling the void of doing drugs okay. So how do you plan to mobilize people, so according to the bio that you guys sent you say that you're going to work in based in estates, you plan if probably we're working on this estates so how do you plan on mobilizing people to come out, let's take for example Ayang man, Ayang girl somewhere who is not a fan of fitness they have never even thought of just may probably running or even walking to the bus stop is hectic to them, so how do you plan on mobilizing people so that you can give them all that so that they can get the results that you guys hope they're going to get at the end of the fitness initiative. We have a team yeah so we have delegated these duties to others, there are others who are doing the mobilization we are doing the awareness okay and then we encourage you to try try and see okay and you find out that it's good okay it's actually working it work for me, I am like an example they know those who live in my neighborhood they know my history so they see actually it worked for me so they know it can work for them so we use my example and others there are other members in our team okay okay and we encourage you to come and try and observe one, two, three months you see the results you enjoy then you continue the program okay soon Osailas let's talk about the time we know that for someone to go through something to be talked about the dangers of drugs to be told about the benefits of getting out and the benefit of stopping using those drugs is going to take time so how long probably if someone came to you as you mobilize and someone approaches you and they are willing to go through the program for how many hours a day probably would they have to to work out and how what periods have you guys probably stipulated that probably by two months by three months this person is going to be free of drugs and can do other things basically our program is for workout is like for five to one hour yeah then it's fun it's not those hard workouts people think about we do zumba we do pilates we do yoga we do tabata so it's fun so you engage it is it's it's all to help you relate with other people as you work out you make new friends who both of you will be of the same course at that time yeah so probably it will give you like nine to twelve weeks yes so nine to twelve weeks someone can be okay as much as you are doing fitness we also talk to them we give them option we give them hope in life yeah because some of them they just know about handouts sports and handouts so we're trying to tell them this life beyond what you know yes okay so now let's say you you say that you're gonna start with Nairobi and then go to Mombasa, Busea and Kisomo now you've mumians Nairobi you've done maybe let's say you you cover 10 estates in Nairobi and it's time for you guys to live to Mombasa yes what what are the what what strategies are you going to put and make sure that the person we interacted with in a certain estates after we've left he's not going to back slide and get into drugs again we do follow-ups yes we'll be doing follow-ups we have a team of like 20 guys but as we go as we move we'll be recruiting as we move on okay when you go to an estate that we are not familiarized we go we talk to people in that area they tell us how to go about it then they join us do it together okay Gilpat for you having been a drug addict i'm sure there are times that there are days that would come and you're like i want to go back there so maybe during those days what did you used to do what did you give your time to to make sure that you don't back slide it wasn't easy for real the relapses you're talking about the relapses actually happened there's a time i quit for three months and then the relapse came in the cravings and the company i still kept the company then i relapsed back and it was worse then i tried again that's when i learnt that you have to fill the void with something in this case i used fitness with my my friend who held my hand and other friends without the support of people like him it wasn't easy so for anyone who's struggling with addiction and is battling the cravings he needs a support around him like friends fitness enthusiasts family okay and especially strong will okay okay uh guys we're going to be taking a very short break on why two five four news but when we come back we get to talk about what does zoezim tahani has for the people in the rural areas who are not living in the cities we're going to be taking a very short break we'll be right back