Anti-drug Campaign in Romania
A campaign of the National Anti-drug Agency is reaching out to teenagers in Bucharest with a strong message about emotions and alternative healthy lifestyles
Roxana Vasile, 22.10.2024, 13:50
‘Own your emotions, overcome your fears and channel your energy in a constructive way! There are so many healthy alternatives to remain full of energy and ‘cool’ but at the same time self-composed, with your feet on the ground, permanently connected to your objectives and reality!’
This is in short the message conveyed by the National Anti-drug Agency, which has launched a “Ground’ campaign in several high-schools in Bucharest with a view to proposing surefire ways to manage the emotions teenagers are presently facing.
The campaign’s message is a strong one: ‘you don’t need to resort to any trick or compromise in order to become a model for the generation you belong to or to reach your potential. It is essential that you accept your imperfections, observe your principles and when you get lost you can ask for help.’
This message has been conveyed to the young people directly through meetings and workshops in their schools but also by launching a newspaper addressing the Ground generation at the webpage and social network pages devoted to this campaign.
According to Ramona Dabija, director of the National Anti-drug Agency, besides the risks associated to drug-consumption the young people are also introduced to a series of healthy alternatives available. And those, who have already given in to the temptation of using banned substances, are being reminded that whenever they are overwhelmed or find themselves in risky situations, they can benefit from counseling, which is confidential and free of charge.
In order to attach more importance to the “Ground” campaign, high-school students have been given the opportunity to interact and learn from the experience of successful Romanian athletes who have achieved remarkable results in their career, being themselves role models of discipline, ambition and healthy lifestyle.
Among those who interacted with the students was Larisa Iordache, 16 times gold medalist in European Gymnastics Championships, fencer Ana Maria Brânză, multiple medalist in the Olympics, three times world champion and seven times European Champion, rower Ancuţa Bodnar – gold medalist in Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, footballers Florin Gardoş and Ionel Dănciulescu or basketball player, Virgil Stănescu.
Swimmer David Popovici, the year’s champion and the idol of his generation, has decided to get involved through an interview published in the ʺGroundʺ newspaper or on the webpage of the aforementioned campaign.
It’s impossible to fathom the real dimensions of drug consumption in Romania and although statistics cannot accurately describe the reality, one thing is for sure – the situation has deteriorated in the past years and that prompted both experts and authorities to sound the alarm and find ways of curbing the phenomenon.
On 24 November, concurrently with the first round of the presidential election, Bucharest will also be seeing a local referendum and one of the questions will be focusing on the involvement of the city halls in the prevention of drug consumption in schools and high-schools in Bucharest.
(bill)
