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Empowering Liberia's Youth
 Many people got it wrong when they felt that Liberia's problems disappeared when the seven-year war ended with the July 1997 elections. The war left Liberia's children totally disadvantaged: they were the ex-combatants, unskilled with no labour, orphaned, abandoned, street children. Left unskilled and unprepared for future responsibilities, Liberia’s disadvantaged youth represented our biggest challenge for post- wartime reconstruction. And that is where the Salesians came to our aid. Realising these really were youth in need, the Salesians of Don Bosco established three organisations under the banner of Don Bosco. Don Bosco Rehabilitation and Skills Training Programme, Don Bosco Homes, and Don Bosco Youth Centre.
Don Bosco Rehabilitation & Skills Training Programme. (DBRSTP)
Founded in 1991 through a joint initiative of UNICEF and the Salesians of Don Bosco the DBRSTP aims at reaching disadvantaged youth aged between late teens and 26 with rehabilitative skills training and counselling. The DBRSTP's Executive Director Mulbah Johnson says Liberia's youth must be helped to make up for the years lost as result of the war by giving them marketable skills so that they can contribute their technical quota in the rebuilding of the country.
Hence the DBRSTP offers skills training in carpentry, masonry, agriculture plumbing, auto mechanics, metal works, and electricity. Currently working in four counties - Montserrado, Bong, Bassa, and Bomi - reaching some 1,300 trainees, the DBRSTP is now a household name for youth empowerment in Liberia. Since 1994, in collaboration with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the DBRSTP has also provided skills training for Sierra Leonean refugees in Liberia. Additionally the DBRSTP has, since 1993, been involved in technological research, leading to the small-scale production of local, low-cost and appropriate building materials for use by the local construction industry. Concrete-fibre roofing tiles, laterite bricks, concrete drainpipes, and terrazzo tiles have received research attention and are currently in small-scale production. The DBRSTP also provides awareness and technical support to small contractors and tradesmen. The production unit is providing practical work opportunities for its trainees; thus increasing their involvement in community rehabilitation efforts. Feasibility studies are in hand for DBRSTP's expansion into Lofa and Sinoe counties. Expansion to any country depends on the availability of funds to meet the needs of the youth there.
Don Bosco Homes
Founded in late 1992, Don Bosco Homes (DBH) caters for disadvantaged children aged four to nineteen whose future prospects of a better life may be seriously compromised because they lacked the opportunity to experience a normal childhood. Disadvantaged children under the care of Don Bosco Homes include orphans, ex-combatants, street and unaccompanied children, and children in trouble with the law. Night-shelters, transit homes, street contact, family tracing and reunification, medication, police-cell visitation, vocational education, legal-aid, recreation, counselling and many other services are provided for these children. DBH social workers visit twenty police depots daily in the Monrovia area in an advocacy role on behalf of young people. When necessary, legal aid is provided. DBH is now in contact with more than 500 Monrovian street-children who can be identified, rescued, and aided, in various ways. The children themselves run to the DBH centres when in trouble, hungry, or sick. Now working in five counties of Liberia DBH is currently reaching more than 980 beneficiaries nation-wide. DBH also runs three War Affected Youth Support (WAYS) projects for UNICEF in Kakati, Tappita and Zwedru.
A recent survey showed that a significant number of the young people who have been through the DBH programmes are now living viable and independent lives.
Don Bosco Youth Centre
The Sean Devereux Don Bosco Youth Centre was founded in 1991 to cater for former child soldiers and other young people in the capital city of Liberia, Monrovia. The activities at the SDDBYC are intended to help the children recover from the effects of the war and to rehabilitate them into society. The activities range from recreation and sports, basic Christian awareness, to mini-skills training and cultural troupe Five programmes are being offered here:
Recreation and Sports
The youth centre offers young people recreation counselling and interaction through sport, from football to chess. Some 200 young people stream to the centre daily to take part in the activities. A membership scheme is already in progress encouraging more to attend.
Basic Christian and Civic Awareness
Children and young adults in all the activities attend a daily prayer session before the activities start. A joint monthly prayer service for all is held, with hymn singing, dancing, and Bible readings.
Cultural Troupe
Although the name may sound a little pretentious the services of this troupe are in great demand. Most Liberians are delighted to see the young people singing, dancing, acting and performing African acrobatics. Depicting the best of their rich Liberian culture they represent a form of entertainment which is in great demand on such occasions as VIP visits, priestly ordinations, graduations, weddings and other functions.
Mini Skills Training Programme
This programme offers sewing and typing for young men and women wanting marketable skills. The SDDBYC helps the trainees find jobs or contracts once they have completed the course.
Women Development Programme
This helps women widowed by the war become self-reliant by providing a loan for them so they can start up some small-scale business. Also women are taught Aids awareness, sanitation, literacy and home economics.
Don Bosco Polytechnic
The Don Bosco Polytechnic is a tertiary institution of higher learning that offers academic, technical and professional programmes. The Polytechnic aims at developing the man-power base for active participation in the economic advancement of Liberia, thereby increasing the number of trained workers needed to decrease the nations dependence on expatriates.
The Don Bosco Programmes came to Liberia at a time when Liberians needed them most beginning in 1979 with the Arthur Barclay Vocational Technical Institute. Their works require the transformation of idle hands and minds into active contributions to community and national development initiatives through rehabilitative skills training, counselling, academic and other activities. Hence the programmes help young people discover their potentials so that instead of depending on hand-outs to survive, they could become independent and productive people.
John T. Monibah (Don Bosco Programmes - Media Unit). |
