Project has 90pc success rate with addicts

The island will host the 22nd congress of the World Federation of Therapeutic Communities (WFTC) from April 13 to 18. It is the first time that the congress has been held in Spain. Details were announced yesterday by Bartomeu Català, chairman of Proyecto Hombre, accompanied by Charles Devlin and Richard Pruss, two of the founders of the WFTC. Català said that it was an honour to have achieved the congress for the island. The WFTC was founded in 1975 and Proyecto Hombre joined in 1998. Devlin and Pruss said that the WFTC had become “the biggest international network of therapeutic non-governmental organisations working in the field of prevention and treatment of drug dependencies.” They added that in recent years it had been working on the reduction of risks. Català said that more than 1'200 people in the Balearics had been able to put drugs behind them, thanks to Proyecto Hombre. According to an evaluation of Proyecto Hombre made by three Spanish universities, 90 per cent of the people who had completed the therapy had stopped taking drugs and 70 per cent were working. Most of them had recovered their families. The congress is held every two years.