One of the aspects of Don Bosco, which I have always found very attractive, was his genuine belief in young people. A belief that they could be more than simply passive receivers of assistance, whether in the form of education, training etc. A belief that they could be active agents of change for themselves and their communities. Such stories as the time Don Bosco allowed the young apprentice barber to shave him with an open blade is often quoted as an example of what a brave, open understanding person Don Bosco was. But could it not be something deeper than that? Perhaps the story is not so much about Don Bosco as a brave person as about his deep belief in the potential of young people to bring about change. I wonder how we today measure up to that belief. Could it be that in our overwhelming sense of responsibility for young people – their protection, growth and development – we have lost some of his faith in young people and in their ability to understand situations and bring about change.
During the Millennium Stars football tour of U.K. in September it became very clear that many people saw these children as victims to be pitied. Fortunately this perception was changed by the children themselves, by their resilience, their adaptability, their sheer zest for life. When we were in Scotland one of the boys was being told, in front of the cameras, by the ‘important’ person how hard it must be coming from a country where a war had recently been raging, and how people understood the hard times they had been through. One of the boys, Prince, looked at him and said “Yes, but the guns we used came from your country. So, please stop selling guns to Africa – that’s what we are using to kill each other.” His response produced a somewhat uneasy silence. How often have we been ‘silenced’ when confronted with young people who want more than education, who are able to bring about change and need our support to do so, rather than needing us to do it for them?
At the beginning of this year we were doing a review of some of the activities of Don Bosco programmes. It very quickly became clear that many of the activities that we had been involved with needed to be integrated. More importantly, we had started to create, without realising it, a network of young people who were active in a variety of ways in their own communities. We started to list this variety of ways.
After the visit of the Millennium Stars the boys started some teams in their own community:
- Abraham and Prince are running the U-13 team, Salesians, now registered in the 4th division.
- Saah and Nusee are running the U-10 team, Chelsea.
- Morris and Forkpa are running the U-8 team, Celtic.
- Christan, Togar and George are heading an informal training programme going around the various elementary schools. To date they have been to six schools and were well received.
- Other local children have formed themselves into a team associated with the Millennium Stars. They call themselves Future Stars.
In the last two months three people have come to the team looking for help.
- The first was a young woman running away from her husband who was drunk and wanted to beat her. The boys hid her in a house and then went for the police.
- The second was some children from the Future Stars team who reported an abuse case involving a 6-year-old girl. The Child Protection officer was contacted the same day and the person responsible removed from the family.
- A group from the community who were worried about the number of armed men in the area wanted the boys to appeal for them for additional security at night. The boys formed a group and went to the police director as the Millennium team. Extra police are now in the area at night.
They are only boys from the community, yet they are making a big difference.
Also last year we began our community teams programme. This involved going into the communities and assisting already existing teams. The idea was to give children the chance to play football and kickball but also through the teams to raise the community awareness about children’s rights and the need for communities to take the responsibility for their own children. The teams also serve as a voice for vulnerable children in the communities. They are now able to speak; safe in the knowledge that they will be protected. These have become part of the other community-based networks.
There are 23 community teams operating in Monrovia, Kakata, Buchanan and Bomi. All of these teams have weekly contact with a worker from Don Bosco Homes. Since January they have had four workshops, two with the contact people in the community and two with the teams themselves. This has resulted in quite a strong network and a lot of kids who have a good idea of what they are trying to do through the teams. The child protection officer, legal officer, outreach workers, social workers and local security, health persons and elders were also at the workshops. The need for vulnerable children to have a voice through the teams was stressed at the workshops. Over 13 instances of abuse have been reported through the teams and resolved usually within the community itself.
Presently we also have over 60 junior counsellors who operate in the catholic schools as peer-group counsellors and liaison between staff and teachers. These are children, who started out as our contact persons after a series of school retreats, but began to take more and more responsibility in school and in the community. They are currently involved in a series of workshops relating to Palaver Management.
Thirteen of these junior counsellors also act as junior monitors in their communities, with the agreement of their families and community leaders. This has proved very effective in highlighting cases of abuse in some of the communities and pressurising communities to put protection mechanisms in place in their own communities. A further 20 of the junior counsellors have also started football teams in their own areas. Zonal workshops are in progress at the moment where everyone from a particular zone – community teams, junior counsellors/monitors, social workers etc. meet and discuss to know each other and to further discuss ways to improve their communities.
