Drug Addiction and Recovery in Tanzania

Formål

The overall aim of the research group is to get a better understanding of why people in Tanzania develop drug problems, important individual and social factors influencing recovery efforts and how people with drug addiction respond to rehabilitation programs. It is also an aim to develop research collaboration between Tanzanian institutions hosting social work students from Volda University College and researchers from VUC / Institute of Social Work. An intention to build cooperation also witm Tanzanian academic institutions in this field of research and to increase the the number of Norwegian and Tanzanian students participating in the research projects. In time this project might develope into research in other countries and other fields of social work ic countries we cooperate with concerning student internship lacement.

Medlemmer

Internal members: Associate Professor - Jarle Pedersen (leader),  Associate Professor (emiratus) Ingun Klepp,  Assistant Professor - Ann Iren Høgalmen,  Assistant Professor - Erlend Walseth,  Master degree student, Inga Klepp, Master degree student, Jonas Hovland 
External members: Suleiman Mauly, President of Zanzibar Recovery Community (MA - Psychology) Abdulrahman Abdullah - General Secretary of Zanzibar Recovery Community

Aktiviteter

The group aims at quartery meetings and have the following plans for the spring and autumn: 
Spring: Work-shop for presentation of findings from our first published report and discussions of the way forward. Meeting where master students in the group present their research design and data collection plan for the autumn 
Autumn: Research follow up in Zanzibar focusing at data collection, presentation of first phase research report for partners and other stakeholders, networking and planning for future projects:

Datacollection related to: 

  • Motivation for and impact of volunteering in recovery work in sober house.
  • Social and political impact on stigma and drugs/rehabilitation policies of the  Zanzibarian drug recovery movement 
  • Master student's project datacollection at Zanzibar related to: 
  • Stigma experiences and recovery challenges among female drug users in Zanzibar 
  • Seminars and meetings in Zanzibar with partners and relevant institutions in order to present research and discuss findings of phase one, and discuss research designs and cooperation for the next phase 

Other activities for the coming 12 months:

  • Write articles based on data from phase one 
  • Analyze and prepare for publication of data collected in the autumn 2021.

Prosjekt

This research project results from of a cooperation Volda University College (VUC) has with the sober house/ Zanzibar Recovery Community (ZRC), starting from 2015. The cooperation has mainly focused on internships for social work students from VUC, in total 17 students from VUC have had their internship training in these sober houses the last four years. This collaboration has now developed into a wish to conduct research activities looking deeper into the recovery challenges of people attending sober house programs, the impact sober houses have on client’s recovery efforts and how the sober house approach to recovery influence attitudes towards addiction and drug addicts in Zanzibar. 

Further information:

The first sober house in Zanzibar, Detroit Sober House, was established in 2009 and the program used was based on the well-known 12-step concept of Anonymous Alcoholics – also called The Minnesota Model. This concept was introduced in Zanzibar through an effort from people at Jane Adams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois; people like Loretta Albright, Andre Johnson, Dr. Calvin Trent and Dr. David Whiters. At first the HIV/AIDS epidemic was in focus of the intervention, how to prevent spreading of the virus. Soon discovering the so to say non - existing recovery support for people with addiction problems in Tanzanian, they started a joint effort with some of the few people in recovery at Zanzibar. This was their first step, which soon lead to training, establishing of a self-support group and later to opening of the first sober house, Detroit Sober House. Considerable work was done at the time in order to bring Tanzanian and Zanzibarian authorities on board in support to this recovery concept – the idea of a self-support model, where recovering addicts work in pees.

Later people who had already been through the 12 - step program in Detroit Sober House wanted to contribute in recovery support to their peers. Hence, they opened more houses. Already in 2013, this one sober house had increased to 11 sober houses; 8 in Zanzibar and 3 on the main land, all using the 12-step program. Thus, we are talking 10 years of experience in implementing this sober house concept in Zanzibar. Today there are seven sober houses working in Zanzibar and three in the main land using this particular recovery program as their approach. Through research, we want to know more about how this works, how the recovering people themselves perceive the support from the sober house self-support concept in meeting their recovery challenges. What do they emphasize as most helpful in the 12 – step program approach? What are the experiences of the new sober house leaders - where do they get motivation and resources from to start and run sober houses? Finally, has this effort made changes in attitudes towards drug addiction and addicts? We will ask how the sober house concept has influenced attitudes in the local community.

Research Questions

  • Which are the main challenges for people recovering from addiction in sober houses in Zanzibar?
  • How does the sober house concept and the 12-step program support people in recovery in Zanzibar?
  • How has introduction of sober houses influenced attitudes towards drug addiction and drug addicts in the communities and drug recovery policies of the authorities in Zanzibar?