Countering Crime and Drug Abuse in Middelburg, South Africa

Press Release • Mar 21, 2016

Volunteers from the Church of Scientology Pretoria and the Middelburg, South Africa, chapter of the Foundation for a Drug-Free World have taken on the challenge of tackling crime and drugs in this crime-ridden town.

South Africa, March 21, 2016 (Newswire.com) - The mining community of Middelburg, South Africa, population 88,000, has a high crime rate and an even higher rate of drug abuse.

Volunteers from the Church of Scientology Pretoria have teamed up with the local chapter of the Foundation for a Drug-Free World—Nazareth Against Drug Abuse—to reach out to Phumalela Secondary School students who are about to enroll in college or university. They are giving them copies of The Way to Happiness to ensure they have a moral code that will help them succeed in the years ahead.

"By handing out copies of The Way to Happiness to Middelburg matriculates we hope to set off a chain reaction. When you hand the booklet to people, you not only affect their lives, because those people hand copies of the booklet to their friends and family and they pass it on. And as it keeps flowing outward in the society, the entire culture is uplifted."

Maurithus Meiring, Church of Scientology Pretoria

The Way to Happiness is a nonreligious moral code written by L. Ron Hubbard. It is based entirely on common sense. Anyone can use The Way to Happiness to lead a better life.

Encouraged by the news that drug related crime in Middelburg has decreased by 10 percent over the past year since the Nazareth Against Drug Abuse team has been active in drug prevention, the volunteers decided to tackle the underlying cause of crime—morality—to really make a difference in the town. This is why they have added The Way to Happiness to their arsenal.

“By handing out copies of The Way to Happiness to Middelburg matriculates we hope to set off a chain reaction,” said Maurithus Meiring, Director of Special Affairs of the Church of Scientology Pretoria. “When you hand the booklet to people, you not only affect their lives, because those people hand copies of the booklet to their friends and family and they pass it on. And as it keeps flowing outward in the society, the entire culture is uplifted.”

The Way to Happiness is available in 112 languages, with some 115 million copies distributed in 186 nations. The campaign to distribute the book has been embraced by more than 257,000 groups and individuals. The Way to Happiness holds the Guinness World Record as the single most-translated nonreligious book and it fills the moral vacuum in an increasingly materialistic society.