The Euridice project 'Ideas and Proposals of Intervention on Drug Addiction in the Workplace', is a long-term prevention programme exclusively implemented in the workplace. It is innovative and experimental. The Euridice project was first ideated in Italy in 1988 by the Cooperativa di Studio e Ricerca Sociale Marcella. The prototype of this programme was first implemented in Milan in the multinational ABB enterprise thanks to a joint agreement between the social partners, the Milan City Council and Province.
The Euridice project develops a plan of action against drug addiction in the workplace. Its aim is to set up one of the first integrated programmes explicitly designed for the workplace by:
- raising workers' awareness of drug addiction in specific working situations;
- promoting suitable forms of aid and training based on a variety of information sources, and validating them;
- linking up the workshop cultural context of the surrounding area, for better co-ordination of human, scientific and economic resources in the fight against drug addiction and for the rehabilitation of the addicts;
- identifying what is specific to each workplace in order to fit the programme to its context, and to develop personalised aid programs for drug-addicted workers and workers indirectly affected by drug addiction.
Euridice is a long term program for intervention on dependencies in the workplace. It is sustained by social bodies such as enterprises and the trade union organisations that through specific agreements make its realisation possible. Through a collaboration between employers and trade union organisations it promotes prevention, training, research and help activities towards all fellow workers and particularly towards those workers who are directly or indirectly involved in dependencies such as drugs, alcohol, tabagism, etc.
Presently Euridice is also a transnational programme partly supported by the European Commission. It is moreover a means of methodological and scientific exchange with other Member States such as Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, The Netherlands, Austria, Greece, U.K. and Italy.
An International Coordination Committee was set up and the following organisations take part in it:
- European Commission (Luxembourg)
- World Health Organisation (Copenhagen)
- Council of Europe (Strasbourg)
- European Trade Union Confederation (Bruxelles)
- International Labour Office (Geneva)