Anti-drug train brings awareness to Czech youth

The educational railway composition has also visited neighbouring countries

Yesterday, a silver train pulled off at the Pilsen train station. However, this railway service isn’t there to carry passengers further to another destination but rather to bring some knowledge and awareness regarding the issue of drug abuse.

Formally called The Revolution Train, the train acts as a moving educational NGO that targets an audience of teenagers aged 12-17, a group that is considered to be the most impressionable and vulnerable to the appeals of drug and alcohol abuse.

Workshops on wheels

The Revolution Train has been in motion since 2009, with the interior of one of its cars designed to serve as a multimedia interactive centre.

One of the sections, for example, has been refurbished as a movie projection hall, showing films that tell stories of the causes, development and also the consequences of drug addiction.

Thanks to the interactive environment, visitors become active participants in the story and are drawn into the action. They then discuss the story together with the experts in the next compartment, which has been converted into a debate room.

To bring things into an even more realistic perspective, the third compartment has been arranged to show different environments associated with drug use: a dingy drug den, a prison cell, a car crash site or a drug treatment facility.

"It's a great project that will definitely discourage a large number of young people from using drugs, but also from alcohol and smoking, and it turns out that sport also plays a big role in prevention. In the future, we would therefore like the train to come to Pilsen for a longer period of time so that a maximum number of pupils and students visit it," said Tomáš Morávek, a local city councillor.

The train crisscrosses the Czech Republic every year, with Prague as its base, paying visits to the different cities to bring education and awareness to the local communities. It has also visited neighbouring Slovakia, Poland and Germany.