PLIAMA is an abbreviation for the Ukrainian name of the Lviv Leading Bright Youth Alternative. This festival has an anti-drugs and anti-AIDS message, and was held for the fourth time already. Enthusiastic young people showed that one can live a bright and fun life without the thrills and risks of taking drugs or trying other forms of dangerous emotional stimulation.
The festival program combined literary readings and body art, frisbee tournaments and graffiti contests, biking events, skateboarders, scooters, and fire-show, a dj party and a rock concert. Thus it covered a wide variety of occupations and preferences of creative, socially active, and athletic youth. Anyone who had a desire to take part in the forum or watch performances of the participants could do it for free thanks to financial support of the Lviv City Council.
Although the weather was not so good — it was rainy and cloudy — PLIAMA-2010 nevertheless gathered a great number of interested young people who brought warm clothes, umbrellas, and hot tea in thermoses. The desire to do something and support the initiatives of others proves the importance of such events and makes one believe that young people are concerned about their own health not less than about the future of the country.
The festival was organized by the charity fund Tochka Opory. This year the actual organizers are Valentyn Beliak (clinical intern at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy) and Olena Urban (student of the Philosophy Department at Ivan Franko Lviv National University).
The idea of organizing anti-drug festival under the slogan “Youth Against Drugs” first came to Beliak. As a psychiatrist at a neuropsychiatry clinic he has frequently encountered similar problems, including not only drug addiction and alcoholism, but also the uncertain public perception and social acceptance in the post rehabilitation period. It is equally important to prevent the problem, to create conditions in which the audience would have an opportunity for reflections. Thus, Beliak said: “According to statistics, today one out of ten Europeans is an alcoholic! Thus, Ukrainian people face this problem if not in their families, then among their relatives or friends. Hence it becomes clear that there is a need for active public activities, because here we speak about responsibility to oneself as well as to the state, because the state is not an abstract notion, it is people who live in it. Healthy people mean a healthy state and a healthy nation.”
Within the framework of the festival there were numerous round tables with narcologists and scientists dealing with this problem. They discussed different forms of addiction prevention, because the activists understand that it is impossible to overcome drug addiction only with the help of festivals, there have to be social programs that would attract wider social layers. The fund Tochka Opory sets many tasks for itself, is involved in cooperating with various organizations and social programs. Among the fund members there are, on the one hand, specialists, psychiatrists, experts in a particular subject and, on the other hand, people who have resources to implement the ideas: businessmen, who are willing to spend money on social programs and understand the necessity of such activities. They direct their forces to solve social problems, which are close to every resident of our city. Yet they attach great importance to cultural and artistic activities, realizing that it is nearly impossible to conduct social work without public support. In order to achieve the desired effect you need a wide public resonance, informational and ideological support, making larger audiences understand social problems.
