“I paid dear for a vulgar second. In a video that has become viral, Montrealers Ali, 23, tells his journey in crime to prevent other young people to sink into it too.
The YouTube video published on Tuesday has accumulated nearly 18,000 views in 48 hours, and extracts published on Tiktok and Instagram have been seen more than 100,000 times.
There is often a question that I am asked in my videos: […] “How were you burned?”
Starts Ali, facing the camera.
Sorry to the people to whom I lied, he continues. No, I was not in a car accident. No, I was not sleeping in an apartment that caught fire. I left to commit a criminal fire that went wrong and I was caught in it.
That is to tell you how in a second, in a spark, your life can change.
The fire caused Ali burns in the third degree, led to the amputation of his fingers and one leg, and forced him to spend painful weeks in the hospital.
Many friends have dropped me. I had a lot of solitude time in the hospital
he reveals.
But before everything changes, Ali says she was an ordinary young Montrealers.
I had ambitions, dreams. Then at one point, monetaryly, it started to get rid of
he testifies.
I started looking for a way of making easy money and, in the end, this easy money cost me much more than it brought me. […] The consequences of that are lost time, money, and my family that I stressed to death.
Ali, who says he wants to raise awareness
Young people, repeat a simple message several times during the video: It’s really not worth it
(it’s really not worth it
).
A testimony that seems to resonate: many Internet users have praised in the comments on YouTube the courage
and the inspiring message
Ali.
Recovery
Luckily, Ali got back on his feet after his accident thanks to the support of his family and the sport, which was saving in his recovery.
I started playing sports, feeling good. It is sure that at the beginning, I was very embarrassed. Besides, at the beginning, when I went out, I had my hands in my pockets all the time because I was a little ashamed of having lost my fingers.
A sign that things have changed, Ali is now followed by some 16,000 people on his Instagram account. He has published training videos for two years, in which he inspires his subscribers to move in turn.
A testimony that will make young people think
Mimoun Mohammed Nordine, social worker and coordinator of the Saint-Michel youth forum, said pleasantly surprised
by this public outing of Ali.
Often there is a kind of omerta on this kind of incident. Young people dare not go to social networks to say not do that.
Although he has never met Ali Personally, young people he works with.
Mimoun Mohammed Nordin also believes that Ali’s case could serve as a model and help to educate young people with whom he intervenes on the dangers of crime.
In parallel with the speech embellished to go and set fire to a place or go to steal a car – an experience that brings big -, this kind of unhappy incident [comme celui d’Ali] will make young people think.
The speaker also hopes that this video of Ali will inspire other young people to get out of silence, in order to break the shame
and put forward the perseverance and resilience
among young people.
With information from Pascal Robidas