The long hard climb out of addiction

Filipino musician and young Nepali started new lives with the help of treatment centre

An elderly Filipino musician says a British judge in Hong Kong helped him turn his life around after 12 years of drug abuse.

A young Nepali says he found salvation when two 'brothers' saw him homeless and drug-addled under a bridge.

Their lives intersected at Operation Dawn, a treatment and rehabilitation centre for drug and substance dependants based on what it describes as 'Christian love and the power of the gospel'.

Tomas Claudio, 60, and Gurung Bolchandra, 29, are mentor and student at Operation Dawn's Wong Tai Sin Halfway House.

Mr Bolchandra began smoking cigarettes and hashish and other drugs at the age of 16 in Nepal. Barely out of Form Three, he decided to set out for Hong Kong in 1997, leaving his parents and siblings behind.

His father is a Gurkha soldier who served the British Army.

'I have many friends in Hong Kong and I started taking a lot of drugs,' he said. 'I depended on a lot of drugs - cough syrup, heroin.'

He has finished a year of rehabilitation at Operation Dawn and is now in the halfway house, where he attends classes and Bible study sessions, mostly run by Mr Claudio.

Last week he began work with the Society of Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention, reaching out to the South Asian community.

Mr Claudio, a retired, Hong Kong-educated double bass player, serves as assistant supervisor of the Wong Tai Sin Halfway House. It has been a long hard climb for him. He said he became addicted to heroin and other drugs at the age of 30 and for the next 12 years was on a downwards spiral. His wife stood by him throughout but he could not kick the habit.

After two years at a government rehabilitation centre he was arrested again in 1992.

'The barrister pleaded for me with the same judge,' he said. 'He remembered me. He said, 'In my long time in Hong Kong this never happened, that the same person has been sent before me twice'.'

The judge sentenced him to three years at Hei Ling Chau Addiction Treatment Centre, but gave him the option of three years' rehabilitation at the Dawn Island centre. He chose Dawn.

After a stint at Operation Dawn - where going cold turkey includes lots of prayers - he was finally able to conquer his addiction. He has been clean for the past 16 years.

Operation Dawn is one of 13 charities that will benefit from the Operation Santa Claus charity drive co-organised by the South China Morning Post and RTHK Radio 3.

Part of the funds raised by Operation Santa Claus, which is in its 21st year, will go to the SCMP Homes for Hope project to help victims of the Sichuan earthquake.

Operation Dawn's general secretary, Lilian Yeh, the daughter of Operation Dawn founder the Reverend John-Paul Chan, said that once you took heroin, you were hooked. 'The first time you try heroin you have a special, good feeling,' she said. 'After you have it once you want to have it again to get that same feeling.'

Mr Claudio said all drugs should be avoided: marijuana, heroin and Ecstasy. He said he had tried them all.

'As Mrs Yeh's father told us: it is the pride of a person that kills you, [you say to yourself] drugs cannot do that to me. I am stronger than it, I will try again,' he said.

Mrs Yeh said the centre on Dawn Island, originally called Town Island, or Fo Tau Fan Chau, off Sai Kung, was in need of urgent repair.

'We're raising money to renovate the old dormitories,' she said.

Wish list

Aim Operation Dawn will launch Project Dawn IT to prepare rehabilitated drug users for re-entry into society, especially in securing a job, by providing training in basic information technology. Some 50 to 80 people in the Dawn Island Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre will benefit from the project each year. Funds needed HK$120,000 in cash or in kind