Every night, she is the one who heals their ailments.
Psychic and physical.
A complex mission for Myriam (first name changed), nurse at the Protestant Social Action Center (Casp), mandated by the city of Paris to take care of unaccompanied unaccompanied minors (unaccompanied minors), from Goutte-d'Or (Paris 18th century).
These young foreigners under 18, without parents or legal guardian in France, knock themselves out with drugs such as Rivotril or Lyrica to face a life course strewn with pitfalls.
Already complicated by the language barrier and their extreme mistrust of adults, this strong dependence makes their care even more difficult.
“As long as they are under-produced, they are disconnected from reality,” notes Myriam.
“Under substance, we can hardly create a link, take them to something else, abounds Aurélie El Hasak-Marzorati, director of Casp.
The priority is therefore to manage to detach them from this addiction in order to then be able to offer them activities, French language courses… ”In short, towards a path of integration.
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So when these young people with marked faces, who often survive petty crime, walk through the door of her office, Miriam first heals their physical wounds.
Most consider taking these drugs as "the only way to escape the hardship of their life," continues Aurélie El Hasak-Marzorati.
Myriam confirms: “They are between 8 and 16 years old, arrive here with multiple trauma, have experienced things of unimaginable violence having risked their lives and have to face hostility against them here.
To overcome these difficulties, they turn to these products which act on them like anesthetics and will give them courage to continue, to move forward.
For them it is a crutch, but it damages them.
"
"Getting out of just one of these addictions is a huge victory"
At the end of a very long and meticulous work, "made as a team with my fellow educators, I redirect some young people, who seem to want to wean themselves, to one of the hospitals of the AP-HP (Public Assistance-Hospitals de Paris) in a teenager's space for specific support ”.
"Miracles like that, there have been," smiles the nurse.
She remembers a "child tired by his situation, who no longer wanted to be under the influence and is now in training and supported by Social Assistance to Children".
“This awareness can occur when there is a detachment from the group, but it is not obvious because it is somewhere their new and only family.
When you manage to get one out, just one of these addictions, she repeats, is a huge victory.
"
Unfortunately, this does not concern the majority.
"We need very adapted and specific means to treat these addictions, to combine medical and social responses," insists Aurélie El Hasak-Marzorati.
Today ".
“These children are not subject to an obligation of care, yet they are in danger.
"