LookAtVietnam – New equipment will be bought for three vocational training centres for former drug addicts in HCM City.

Former drug addicts work at the Phu Van Embroidery Centre in HCM City. The city will invest around US$500,000 to upgrade equipment for job training in vocational centres for former drug addicts.

Two of the centres are in HCM City, the Nhi Xuan Vocational Training and Job Creation Centre in Hoc Mon District and Thanh Thieu Nien Vocational Training Centre No 2 in Cu Chi District.

The Phuoc Binh Society-Labour-Education Centre, which co-operates with HCM City government, is located in Dong Nai Province.

In order to be eligible to enrol at the job training centres, the former drug addicts must take literacy courses at rehabilitation centres for an 18-month period.

Dang Minh Su, deputy head of the Social Evils Prevention Division, said that job training for former addicts would help reduce the recidivism rate and the burden on drug abusers’ families.

According to the division’s figures, the average number of addicts living and being treated at rehabilitation centres has been 2,000 per year since 2007.

The number of addicts at the rehab centres in the first quarter of the year increased 12.12 per cent over the same period last year.

Each year, around 1,400 former addicts in rehabilitation centres are in need of vocational training.

Since the city’s programme to help drug abusers began, more than 7,400 former addicts have found jobs, accounting for 65 per cent of total number who have completed their rehabilitation period.

Their average monthly income is between VND800,000 ($45) and VND2 million ($112), with some earning up to VND7 million ($393).

Over the past four years since the programme started, the city’s districts have provided loans of VND8.6 billion ($483,146) to 1,414 former addicts to help them set up businesses.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News