CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
by Alpha R.Jalloh, Sierra Leone, May 1998
THEME = CHILDREN
One of the biggest problems Sierra Leone is grappling with today,
is that of the street children
The West African intervention force (ECOMOG) ousted the Armed Forces Ruling Council junta, thus paving the way for the reinstatement of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah's government (overthrown by the junta on 25 May 1997). Kabbah's government, preoccupied with the reconstruction of a devastated country, is not able to respond to every immediate need, and so the street children continue to roam the streets of our cities and towns. Catholic organisations have become very concerned with this issue. On 14 January this year, while the junta was still in power, a home for street children called The Don Bosco Home, and sponsored by the Salesian Fathers, was opened along Siaka Stevens Street in Freetown. Father John Thompson is the project's co-ordinator. He says most of the children are displaced from war-affected areas in the country. "Before we managed to encourage them to come to the home, they had become used to street life", he says. In many parts of Freetown, children could be seen begging and sometimes clinging onto passersby asking for something to eat. Because the number of children roaming the streets was increasing all the time, Fr.Thompson and others like him, felt that something had to be done to help these children.
Samuel Bojohn is the project's supervisor. He says social workers have been employed to go along the streets of Freetown to persuade street children to go to the home, where a meal is prepared for them at least once a day. In addition to that, educational and medical facilities are also provided.
The children, who are mostly between 8 to 12 years old, spend the whole day in the home and return to the streets at night. Obviously this is not the best solution for the children's welfare, and a building has been rented to provide a night shelter for the 205 children who frequent the home during the day.
Not all the children are displaced. Some of them are runaways from home. Mustapha Ahmad, 12, says he was driven from home by his parents when he went out with some of his friends even though his father warned him not to. Every child has a different story to tell and many still seem to have kept the violent attitudes they acquired on the streets. One thing is certain, when the children come to The Don Bosco Home, they receive help and understanding, not blows. The children have to be encouraged to attend on a regular basis. Mr Bojohn says: "We can only get rid of their bad attitudes after housing them. But presently, out of the 205 children enroled in the programme, only 85 attend classes".
In spite of being helped with food by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Catholic Relief Service, the project is faced with acute financial constraints. Mr.Bojohn says: "Feeding, clothing and providing educational material for the children, plus paying the teachers' salaries, is not an easy task".
Children in Sierra Leone are sometimes referred to as "tomorrow's leaders", but if the alarming increase of children on the streets is anything to go by, tomorrow's leaders face a bleak future.
There is one set of street children who has aroused a growing concern for the people of Freetown. These are former combatants in the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) militia which has been fighting a civil war since March 1991. A Catholic organization known as Children Associated with the War (CAW) is presently caring for them.
Mrs. Letitia Pettiquoi is CAW's public relations officer. She says at least a hundred children are presently housed at a home in Wellington, in the outskirts of Freetown. She says: "When the AFRC junta and their RUF allies took over power in May last year, most of these children went back to join their RUF colleagues, but we succeeded in bringing many of them back to the home before the junta was ousted" - but not all, as some children were killed by angry mobs when the junta was ousted. One boy says that while they were in the militia, grown-up RUF rebels forced them to kill and torture villagers in the interior of the country. Consuming hard drugs was an everyday activity.
Dr.Edward Alie Mahim is one of CAW's psychiatric consultants. He presently offers treatment and counselling service to these youngsters whom, he says, could become good citizens in the future if they change. However, he expresses concern at the alarming increase in drug addiction among youngsters in the country. Also, the number of youths driven insane through drug abuse has risen rapidly.
To complete the picture on a nationwide scale, the Sierra Leone News Agency reports there are hundreds of young children in the north in need of food, shelter and medication. All over the country, schools have been destroyed which means children are simply not being educated any longer.
All in all, if Sierra Leone's younger generation are to become the nation's leaders of tomorrow, then urgent attention is needed to alleviate their situation in the nation of today.
END
CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
PeaceLink 1998 - Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgement