Steps are being taken to establish model villages for drug prevention in every Divisional Secretariat Division in the country, NewsFirst reported.
Shantha Gamage, Director of the Treatment and Rehabilitation Division of the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board (NDDCB), said the initiative would focus both on rehabilitating people with drug addiction and on preventing the spread of drugs through the model villages.
How it is to be run
The programme will be implemented with the support of the Police, community police units, Grama Niladharis and voluntary organisations.
Gamage said training of officers for the project is expected to be completed by the end of this month. The project is scheduled to run for two years.
Because the stated coverage is every Divisional Secretariat Division, the plan as described is an islandwide commitment rather than a pilot in selected areas.
Not reported
NewsFirst does not say what a “model village” consists of in practice — whether it denotes a set of services placed in a village, a designation awarded to villages that meet a standard, or a selection of communities for intensive work.
The filing gives no budget, no number of officers to be trained, and no criteria for choosing villages within each division. It does not say when the two-year period begins, how outcomes will be measured, or how the programme relates to existing NDDCB school, workplace and community prevention work.
No second verified newsroom had filed on the announcement at the time of writing.
