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(NYASATIMES) Scots must stop drinking themselves to death – Malawi journalist

Scots must stop drinking themselves to death – Malawi journalist
By Nyasa Times
Published: August 3, 2009

On his first tour of Scotland’s cities, Mabvuto Banda from Malawi was horrified to find a society scarred by alcohol and drugs.

It is 4am and I am on patrol with two police officers in Aberdeen. We bump into a group of four boys, aged between 10 and 16, loitering in the street. The police ask if they have been drinking. They answer emphatically, but not entirely convincingly, ‘No’.

I am shocked that children are gallivanting at this late hour when they have a home to go to. Where, I ask myself, are their parents? This wouldn’t happen in my country, Malawi, unless something was terribly wrong.

I am in Scotland on an eight-day visit to learn more about the country that has such powerful ties with my own. Scotland’s 19th-century missionary explorer, Dr David Livingstone, went there almost 150 years ago. Scots have worked with my people to develop education and health systems and the relationship remains strong.

However, my time in the country soon teaches me that there are many problems in Scotland that we do not have in Malawi. Cheap, widely available alcohol is at the root of most of them. Stewart McKay, project manager for the Glasgow-based Greater Easterhouse Alcohol Awareness Project (GEAAP), which is working to minimise the harm caused by alcohol and drug abuse, agrees.

“The problem of alcohol abuse is huge,” he says. “At least seven people a day die throughout Scotland because of alcohol abuse.”

I pause and contemplate the figures. Alcohol abuse in Scotland is doing as much damage as HIV and Aids in Malawi, where 10 people die every day. The disease has wiped out a generation of adults.

I talk to Jeanette Gillespie, a recovering alcoholic, who has stayed sober for the past four years thanks to GEAAP. “My doctor told me that I was going to die if I took another drink. I have recovered and am now helping others to change,” she says.

At Grampian police headquarters in Aberdeen, posters pinned to the notice board reflect a preoccupation with alcohol abuse. “Think before you drink,” says one. Another reads: “Is your visit with us alcohol-related?”

I am here to meet Chief Inspector George MacDonald. He takes me to his office and offers me a cup of tea.

“We have a real problem of alcohol and drug abuse in the city and Scotland as a whole,” he says. “We do not have a magic wand to stop it.”

MacDonald blames alcohol for many of the violent and petty crimes in the city. He takes us to the main thoroughfare, Union Street, on foot to witness first-hand what police have to deal with on a daily basis. It’s a frenzy. Boys and girls, men and women take turns bar-hopping through the night. “The problem in this country is that most people don’t do casual drinking,” he says. “When they go out, all they want to do is to get drunk.” We pass a very drunk girl, aged about 17. “Go home,” MacDonald tells her quietly as we approach, almost bumping into her.

MacDonald deploys up to 40 officers on foot patrols in the city centre but admits that police alone cannot manage the problem. He mentions a group called Street Pastors, people from churches who volunteer to come out of their beds in the late hours every weekend to assist.

We jump into a van with two officers, ready for action. We bump into the gang of boys who deny that they have been drinking. They try to show us who is boss by ordering The Sunday Times’s photographer not to take any pictures.

After running their names past someone at headquarters, one of the officers discovers that one of them is a habitual offender. His record shows that he has been in and out of police custody since the age of 10 for petty crimes.

We drive on to meet two street pastors, Stevie Srinner and Ruth Arthur. They have in their custody a 22-year-old man too drunk to stand up, let alone walk.

Is it any surprise when people here can buy a bottle of whisky for £7 at an off-licence? Alcohol is widely available in the many churches-turned-pubs on almost every corner in the heart of Glasgow, a city famous for its ecclesiastical history. It surprises me to find so many religious buildings converted into bars.

The next day, I travel to Edinburgh, where the story is the same. In this city, alcohol and drug abuse is on the rise, particularly among the immigrant population.

I meet Pavel Volny, from the Czech Republic. At 34, he has had a lifetime of hardship. He lost a job two months ago and since then has been sleeping in an old graveyard close to Edinburgh Castle. His 25-year-old wife died five years ago.

“I have been homeless since I lost my job,” he says as he sips a cup of hot tea — his first meal of the day, courtesy of the Care Van, a Christian initiative in the city sponsored jointly by the Edinburgh City Mission and the Bethany Christian Trust.

“I have been on drugs and taken a lot of alcohol since I lost my job,” he says, looking forlorn and lost.

Along with several fellow immigrants, Volny has been eating thanks to David MacLennan and his colleagues at the Edinburgh City Mission. MacLennan tells me that the influx of immigrants has created a new wave of homelessness and substance abuse in the capital.

Back in Glasgow, several non-governmental organisations are working to reduce the problems of drink and drug abuse. But they complain that a lack of government funding is defeating their efforts to fight the problem.

In one of Glasgow’s poorest areas, Liz Mitchell, manager of the Parkhead Youth Project, says she needs about £300,000 a year to run and sustain her programmes.

She is afraid that her project might not survive because there are not enough funds. If she is forced to close, it would mean the end of a scheme that has been helping young people aged between eight and 24 overcome their addictions and break away from gangs in the area.

I do the maths and realise that the combined budgets of the GEAAP and the Parkhead Youth Project amount to considerably less than the £3m a year that the Scottish government gives to Malawi.

Money from Scottish taxpayers is helping Malawi meet many challenges. It is helping achieve better primary education, reducing maternal and child mortality, combating HIV/Aids and improving gender equality.

I applaud the Scots for supporting Malawi, where the maternal and child mortality rates are among the highest in the world. But I don’t see why Scots should be funding less urgent issues, like gender equality, when the people of Scotland need the money to sustain local initiatives addressing the country’s serious alcohol problem.

I leave Scotland thinking that if the Scottish government put more funds into preventing alcohol and drug abuse, many lives would be saved. After all, charity begins at home.

*Mabvuto Banda is a journalist with The Nation newspaper in Malawi. This article was first pubished in The Sunday Times of UK.

Labels: ALCOHOL, JOURNALISM, MABVUTO BANDA, SCOTLAND

posted by MrK @ 2:36 PM