ENN1504 Assignment 1 (DISTINCTION ANSWERS) Semester 1 2024 - DISTINCTION GUARANTEED

ENN1504 Assignment 1 (ANSWERS) Semester 1 2024 - DISTINCTION GUARANTEED Answers, guidelines, workings and references......BACKGROUND Mr Dube is the chairperson of the Student Support Committee at Malusi University. The Student Support Office together with the Student Representative Council (SRC) members have decided to engage the student body as well as do community work with local schools affected by drug abuse. Mr Dube called a meeting with the Student Support Officials and members of the SRC to discuss drug abuse issues at the university and how they could reach out to help students from neighbouring schools who experience drug abuse problems. INSTRUCTIONS Below is a transcript (exact words written down) of what was said under item agenda of this meeting presented in the form of a dialogue. As the secretary for the Student Support Office at Malusi university, it is your duty to take minutes during meetings. Malusi University is overwhelmed by drug abuse problems which affect student performance and enhances high dropout rate. At this point, the meeting is discussing Agenda Item 3.5: Drug abuse issues and student support. This means that the complete format for minutes is not required. Remember that in taking minutes, we carefully select and summarise information, and make changes to style and grammar. Note that you should not record what each person said in turn. You should use the linear format of minutes (in sentences and paragraphs). Your answer should not exceed ONE page in length. TRANSCRIPT Mr Dube (Chair): Colleagues and dear students, drug addiction is rife here at out university and our communities. Most of our students perform bad or even drop out from the university due to this addiction. Our neighbouring schools are also experiencing gangsterism, poor performance and even high rates of student drop out, and that is directly or indirectly emanating from drug abuse. As an institution, we have a duty to intervene and assist students as much as we can. We are also expected to stretch a helping hand to our neighbouring schools and assist wherever we can. Our agenda item now colleagues is therefore 3.5: Drug abuse issues and student support. But before we go any further with these issues, the committee has invited Ms Botha, an owner of a drug rehabilitation centre closed by, to just give us an idea about the impact of drug abuse and how the centre assists. Let us allow Ms Botha to share information with us. ENN1504/101/3/2024 3 Ms Botha: Thanks very much, Chair. I am a former drug addict who has opened my home and heart to poor people battling with substance abuse locally. I have turned my three-bedroom house into a rehabilitation centre for addicts who want to start afresh but cannot afford to pay for their recovery. Botha Recovery Centre hosts patients aged between 13 to 68 years for free. We help people who are heavy alcoholics or addicts of crack cocaine, “whoonga” or “dagga” and “nyaope.” Most of the patients are unemployed, some live on the streets doing drugs before getting help from the centre, and many have confessed to stealing from their families and house breaking to feed their addiction. The centre provides a free 14 or 21-day stay for addicts but in extreme cases treatment can be prolonged. They are helped by volunteers who are recovering addicts. The centre has doctors and social workers who work without charge. Mr Dube: Thank you so much Ms Botha for sharing with us the contribution of your centre in assisting our community. Very few people can avail their premises for free especially in assisting patients with possibilities of stealing from them. Ms Oriel: Chair! As the SRC, we also have friends from the university who are addicts or recovered addicts who shared their stories with us. For instance, one friend said that she was introduced to “whoonga” by a friend last year and that she would do things such as stealing from her mother and grandmother to get money to buy the drug. The other one was chased from home to live in the streets because of her addition. She tried to quit but that did not last. She was referred to the Botha Recovery centre by her cousin and she never looked back. Chair, there are many students who are struggling with this addiction and the question is, how can we assist as the university and the student body? Mr Dube: In our discussion as the Student Support Office, we thought that it would be advisable for now to work with and support the already established rehabilitation centre and therefore engage with the SRC on the following: awareness campaigns at the university and neighbouring schools about Botha Recovery Centre, volunteering at the centre and duties to perform, and fundraising for the centre. Ms Moot: Colleagues and students, as the Student Support Department, we have agreed that we need to come up with ways to make our students aware that there is a ENN1504/101/3/2024 4 centre closed by to assist them. One way of doing that is to hold seminars on drug abuse where recovered addicts can share their experiences with the students. The Department of Social Work can also be invited to such seminars to share information about how they intervene and assist affected students and their families. Colleagues from the Health Science Department can also share information with the student body about how drug addiction destroys them physically and mentally. All we are saying is, as the university, we are prepared to engage with all the relevant departments to assist as much as we possibly can. Ms Cele: As the SRC, we suggest that we hold at least one such seminar per term. We will include the seminars in our annual itinerary for all the students to be aware of. We will remind the student body about each seminar in our mass meetings and encourage them to attend. As a way of increasing student awareness, we will also encourage former students and even those who are still registered with the university and recovered from addiction to participate in the seminars and share their stories. Mr May: Well, in support of suggestions made by Ms Cele, we as the SRC are prepared to engage with SRC members at our neighbouring high schools to share ideas about this terrible drug addiction. We will urge university drug addict survivors to address high school students, share their experiences with them, and encourage those with a problem to voluntarily go to the centre for help. We will also ask school principals to allow us to address parents and make them aware of the centre and the support we are offering to the affected students. Ms Kubai: We are even prepared to volunteer at the centre as students during long weekends and holidays to assist with patient admissions, cleaning, cooking, laundry, and even helping in the vegetable garden to grow vegetables to feed the patients. ENN1504/101/3/2024 5 Mr Dube: Colleagues and dear students, it looks like we are all in agreement that we will utilize Botha Recovery Centre to assist and support university and high school students with drug addiction problems. I am more excited about how our students really want to be hands on with awareness programmes and assistance at the centre. However, you are all aware that the centre is not big enough to accommodate more patients. So, we need to think about fundraising activities which could assist in building a bigger facility which can continue to provide this vital service to our community. I therefore suggest that we all go and think about how we can raise funds to support the centre and share our ideas in our next meeting. I think we have exhausted this issue. Are there any objections to this initiative? All: No! Mr Dube: Thank you very much colleagues and students. I am looking forward to a fruitful meeting scheduled for next month.