Prague, March 14 (CTK) – The Revolution Train, which warns mainly teenagers about drug use, has had more than 55,000 visitors in the past three years, the project’s author Pavel Tuma told a press conference on Wednesday.
The train has visited 63 towns so far. It operates in the Czech Republic and Germany but has been in Slovakia and Poland as well.
The idea first appeared in 2006 and its test operation started in Central Bohemia in 2010, but stopped after two years. In 2015, it was restarted. This year it is to return to Czech and German towns it visited before.
The train has six carriages that present the risks related to drug use. Children may watch the stories of a boy and a girl who start using legal drugs and gradually move from cigarettes and alcohol to illegal hard drugs, ecstasy and heroin. The girl manages to get rid of her addiction, but the boy dies of overdose.
The train includes parts that look like a prison, a bar, an interrogation room and a drug addict den. Some parts are also designed as body organs that are gradually destroyed by drugs. There is an improvised car crash in which a drunk driver kills a motorbiker.
The Nove Cesko (New Czechia) foundation that operates the Revolution Train also organises follow-up programmes at schools.
During their visits to the train, children fill in forms asking about their own experience with drugs. About 40,000 forms have been processed so far.
Younger children may visit the train as well, but they undergo only a part of the programme, omitting the carriages dealing with hard drugs and prostitution.
