A private meeting in the company to talk about gambling together with some specialists and give those present the necessary tools to understand if they are in a situation of addiction. This is what is promoted by Capp Plast, a company with offices in Prato and Campi Bisenzio (and in various cities in Europe), a leader on a European scale in the production and regeneration of flexible packaging, containers and bottles. The company has decided to join the ‘Prato in Gioco’/’Giacolav’ project, supported by the Municipality of Prato and Anci Toscana together with Federsanità Anci, Cat, Gruppo Incontro and Pane e Rose. An investigation that led to the mapping of the Prato area, which holds the black jersey in Italy for amount of gambling. In one year alone, a figure of over 318 million spent emerged at videolottery, with a sum of 1,800 euros per capita. And then 173.4 million were recorded for online skill games (poker, chess, bridge, etc.). Numbers that become even more impressive if compared to a more populous province, such as Florence, where ‘only’ 115 million were spent on VLTs, therefore much less than half compared to the reality of Prato.
In light of these numbers and considering that the Prato-based company has about 200 employees, the management team at Capp Plast decided to give all workers an hour off to attend the meeting with the experts. “We joined this campaign because we were made aware of how the area has a strong vocation for gambling – they explain at Capp Plast -. A pathology that can have a devastating impact on the quality of life of people and their families. We felt the moral obligation to do our part for prevention purposes because we employ about 200 families in the company and therefore we wanted to give those who felt the need, the opportunity to speak with experts and understand if any of them may have a similar problem. Providing the assessment tools to understand and possibly get out of a similar pathological situation is fundamental”.
“Prato in gioco” organized a series of awareness events on the topic during the mapping period. Events were organized in public places such as parks, Arci and Acli clubs, youth centers and libraries. “Participation in the meeting was obviously voluntary – concludes Capp Plast -. We simply gave an hour off to all employees”.
