On October 9 more than 2 000 people celebrated the second WeFree Day at the San Patrignano Community in Italy – an event intended to make sure that people get to know that drug trafficking and addiction make slaves out of millions of people.

Drug dealers don´t care about you ; to them you are just a source of income and nothing more. Thousands of people are making money from people addicted to drugs. Do you really think that coca is grown by happy farmers? And where do you think the profits from heroin sales end up? Maybe it is time you started asking yourself some questions.

The WeFree Day is the right day to start listening, to see, and think.

The programme for this year’s WeFree Day was most impressive to say the least , and you are welcome to visit the WeFree website at www.wefree.it to learn more about it.

Pictures and interviews from the WeFree Day at San Patrignano will be published here later.

About San Patrignano

Since 1978, San Patrignano has taken in more than 20 000 people, offering them a home, health care, legal assistance, and the opportunity to study, learn a job, change their lives, and regain their status as full members of society.

There are 140 volunteers working in the community, as well as 420 employees, associates and consultants – 32.5 per cent of them are former drug abusers.

The organisational structure is made up of a foundation, the San Patrignano non-profit association, and a consortium that brings together four non-profit social co-operatives.

In addition to its main location in Rimini, the community has two branches – in Trentino (San Vito Pergine) and inland of Rimini (Botticella di Novafeltria). The community is also home to 75 children of staff members and young people in the rehab program, many families, and about 25 minors with social integration and drug abuse problems.

It also has a 50-bed medical clinic specialised in drug related illnesses, an educational centre for children, a theatre, an auditorium, and many residential, sport, and recreational facilities.

San Patrignano has also offered a home to many people under house arrest and on probation.

In the last 25 years the community replaced over 3 600 years of prison time with rehabilitation programs aimed at full recovery and social and professional reintegration.

For some 16 years now, San Patrignano has periodically been the subject of scientific studies aimed at assessing the effectiveness of its programme. This is because of its conviction that every charitable organisation has a duty to demonstrate the success of its work, through transparent collaboration with universities and third parties in studies that use sociological follow-up or substance testing techniques.

These studies, carried out by the universities of Bologna, Urbino and Pavia, show that over 70 per cent of community residents, after completing the educational programme, are fully integrated into society and remain drug-free.

For more information about San Patrignano visit www.sanpatrignano.org.

Did you know that…

1 682 people were in treatment at San Patrignano in 2008

The amount paid by residents, their families and public services amounted to € 0,00

A short video about the San Patrignano Community: