In San Patrignano we have seen thousands of youths, often minors, who despite their young age no longer have a glimmer of light in their lives, having found drugs as a way to stifle their pain. We see thousands when meeting the students from schools all around Italy with our prevention project called WeFree. 50 thousand students a year come to visit and learn about prevention, not only regarding substances, but also about having a full healthy life, with relationships, friendships, experiences and constructive dialogue.
With this dialogue and confrontation with students, we try and find a way for them to open up and share their stories. These are the same guys who are often in search of feeling part of a group, giving themselves strength in front of their continuous doubts and bewildering insecurities.
The signals that highlight this emergency in youths are clearly increasing, from drug seizures that are reaching double figures with the spread of synthetic drugs and the return of heroin. The horrific violence where the value of life is being destroyed from unconsciousness and where other’s judgment takes an exaggerated and distorted form, this issue is very relevant to young people, unfortunately there are increasingly fewer that ask for help, with even more families being alone and abandoned in seeking us as a reference. There are many realities that are committed as San Patrignano is, in trying to provide answers through concrete projects and support systems, with visibility and sustainability for even more tools to be deployed mainly in the field of prevention, not only from drugs, but also in developing initiatives to provide answers. It’s a difficult task, that we are trying to responsibly fulfill that task; we are convinced that nowadays’ adolescents, need to open up and confront problems in order to grow up with serenity.