UG 13 - REHABILITATION AND PREVENTION FOR THE YOUTH PEOPLE OF GULU
Project Location
Gulu is a town in Northern Uganda that emerged from a twenty-year war that ended in 2007. The devastating effects of violence on the social fabric are still present and very heavy: fragility and often breakdown of the family structure, violence, single mothers, growing poverty, youth hardship, street boys/girls, alcohol and drug abuse. A recent article in a local newspaper stated that Uganda has the highest rate of alcoholism in Africa.
For over 30 years, the CSG, (Comboni Samaritans of Gulu), an organization belonging to the Diocese of Gulu (started by Comboni nuns, fathers and lay people) has been involved in social work in favor of the most vulnerable groups: people with HIV/AIDS, child soldiers, single mothers, prostitutes, the poor and street children, and, at the same time, is also very present on the prevention front, through the "Education for life" programs.
Project description
The street kids’ project started about four years ago, which developed a Day Care Center where the children are welcomed, listened to, cared for in a holistic way and where they begin a journey of human and spiritual growth. Their story is reconstructed, family ties are recovered, a personalized path with social workers is started. As soon as the general conditions improve, the school process is resumed, favoring technical preparation to acquire important skills to begin a new life path. At the end, they are given the tools to start their own small business.
In recent years, a network of contacts and collaborations has also been built with local health facilities, with the orthopedic clinic (they often arrive with broken arms or legs) and psychiatric clinic in Gulu (it is estimated that 20% have psychiatric disorders), with the police and political authorities in the district, with support groups for training activities, etc. When the boy has been on the street for many years and has a strong drug addiction, this path is not enough. We must move on to the next step, which is the creation of a social rehabilitation community.
For this reason, we are starting the project of a care community on a farm that we have available. It is a reality far from the city and isolated, far from the gangs they belong to and the availability of drugs; an environment immersed in the greenery and quiet of the savannah, with many animals, a vegetable garden and countryside; a protected house where we would like to offer the best possible assistance, according to our possibilities and taking into account the context in which we live, for the boy's psychophysical recovery and his reintegration into the Community.
Here, with the help of our educator, the kids can acquire a different and healthy rhythm of life compared to the previous one, made up of precise schedules, daily commitments and small jobs to give meaning and a goal to the day. This aspect is very important because our kids come from life situations without rules, without goals that put them continuously at risk.
Contact with animals is good pet therapy, especially with puppies, while work in the fields and in the garden, compatible with the available strength, is a regenerating activity. Even the staff in service at the farm who have agricultural and livestock skills and who live there permanently, have welcomed the kids' project with joy, creating a welcoming, open, serene and educational environment. For the kids, this family atmosphere helps to recover a dimension of care and attention, lost over the years on the road. Staying on the farm also means recovering the cultural roots of the Acioli who have always been farmers and breeders. The government also insists that, in the fight against growing poverty, we must enhance agricultural resources and livestock breeding, acquiring new skills, introducing new crops and new tools.
At the moment the facility can accommodate six children but we want to limit the number to gain experience given the complexity of the process and the vulnerability of the children. We can avail ourselves of external consultancy from experts in the educational and health fields. The farm is located about 10 km from the city and there are no means of transport. We would need a simple and low-consumption means to transport people, animals, food and products of the land.
If the recovery of drug-addicted children is long and demanding, the priority at this time is prevention. In this field we have a long experience with programs called “Education for life” that began with the AIDS pandemic.
This training process was born in American universities and, here in Uganda, has been enriched with the contribution of the local culture. For its participatory and engaging methodology, for its holistic approach that looks at every dimension of life, for the richness of the content and the skill of the facilitators, it has always had great appreciation from young people, parents and educators with an important positive impact on the lives of the participants.
There are many testimonies of the changes among the young generations, and there has always been a very high request to resume the activities interrupted years ago due to lack of funds. For this reason we would like to resume these programs with monthly workshops (lasting four days) for groups each made up of about 30 children aged between 8 and 19, grouped according to age.
Objectives
- Creation of a social rehabilitation community to fight drug addiction
- Enhance agricultural resources and livestock breeding as a means of reintegrating young people into the community once they have detoxed
- Start a prevention program on the dangers of alcohol and drugs with elementary and middle school children
Beneficiaries
Direct: 6 drug addicted children hosted on the farm and about 400 children from the prevention program
Indirect: families and society
Referent sister of the project: Sr. Dorina Tadiello
Project's costs