I choose to choose

A program run by the National Anti-drug Agency

Ana-Maria Cononovici, 04.12.2018, 12:54

Films,
theater shows, round tables and even camps for teenagers were some of the
actions undertaken as part a project about sound choices. The project called ‘I
choose to choose’ was organized by the Beneva Association and funded by the
Romanian Government through the Interior Ministry’s National Anti-drug Agency.
It was part of a program of national interest focusing on prevention and
medical, psychological and social assistance for drug addicts running in the
period 2015-2018. The project is about people and their experiences. Florentina
Ciocănea-Petrariu, with the Beneva Association, explained the name of the
project:

It is about choice, our choice to get involved in the community and the education
process. The project started from the needs we identified among teenagers, who
most the time feel invisible and pressured by society. They learn, they go to
school, which is a good thing, but there is this pressure that they should get
high grades and learn whatever subject matters the school imposes, quite
frequently ignoring their real passions. This is what prompted us to try to
open their eyes and show them that there are people who followed their dream
and turned it into a profession.

It was
a motivational project meant to answer a need indentified by its very
initiators, as Iulian Văcărean, the president of the Beneva Association told
us:

We noticed that, in a rapidly-changing
education system, what matters for pupils and stays with them throughout their
lives is their choice to live and make their dreams and passions come true.
This is what we tried to encourage as part of this project. Because these
passions, which they discover in their teenage years, will stay with them all
their lives, no matter the domain of their passion: theater, music or sports.
And, by the way, sport keeps them healthy and able to carry on with their
dreams.

Next Paula
Frăsinoiu, a police commissioner, will tell us more about the important activities
undertaken under the project addressing secondary and high school students, a
project meant to prevent drug consumption:

All activities were important, but what
drew our attention, as funders of the project, was the theater play made by our
partners with the Beneva Association as well as the other activities held
during school camps such as informing and raising awareness in the sense of
promoting a healthy life.

Also as
part of the project, a film was made, which many high schools requested to
screen for their students. Here is Iulian Văcărean, the president of the Beneva
Association with details:

The film starts from the idea of a high
school kid, Cristian Robe, meeting people who become his inspiration. And these
people are genuine models for today’s generations of young people, namely musicians,
actors and athletes. Besides following one’s passion, one needs models to guide
one’s behavior, to be able to obtain success. Success is not necessarily a goal
in itself for each and every one of us, but we all want to live in a beautiful
world and it’s the beautiful people who inspire us to build a beautiful world.

Next Iulian
Văcărean will tell us about the most important effect of the project:

When a 7th grader comes to
you and tells you: look, I trust you and I want to tell you what’s going on in
my life right now, WELL, this is, to me, an extraordinary effect. A high school
student came to us and said: ‘God, you have brought the light in our school;
you have brought examples to which we have not had access so far!’ Some kids
cried, others giggled when we told them good or bad stories about what could
happen to them, but, I guess, children’s happy faces were the project’s biggest
achievement.

Mihaela
Bebu, a social worker with the Service on reducing drug supply, believes the
project was necessary:

The level of drug consumption reported
in Romania corresponds to the average level within the EU. We are all doing
something, the public institutions as well as civil society, because, together,
we can do much more than what we could achieve individually. We intend to
continue and develop this partnership.

The
efficiency of such a project is based on the fact that, the impact you have on
a child today will reach the Internet and other media, increasing its effect
exponentially.

(Translated by L. Simion & E. Nasta)