Background
Since
Liberia experienced the 15 years prolongs civil unrest, the chances of
chaos, crimes, violence and addictiveness to elicit substance remain a
huge challenge for former child soldiers (FCS), women associated with
fighting forces (WAFF) and other war affected youths (WAY). Today, a vast
number of these men and women are caught up with the use of
illicit substances, violence and crime for living. The rapid development of Liberia will continue to remain elusive if we continue to ignore the importance of promoting social change and
relief our war affected men and women.
Some of our team memebrs in Liberia Ramses HUTCHINS, Morris MATADI (founder and CEO of IDEFOCS), and Brocks POKAI.
Capturing dreams & challenges
The Initiative for the Development of
Former Child Soldiers (IDEFOCS) conducted Ghetto Outreach Forums interactive sessions during 2013 and 2014. The Forums were run with support from
Action10 and HR&S and brought together individuals from diverse backgrounds with complex
situations.
The sessions aimed at
informing about the danger of illicit
substances, violence and crime as well as collect information. We included surveys where
ghetto boys and girls could explain in which way they would like support with facilitating a process where they regain their
lives. The questions concerned personal
background, recruitment by fighting forces, an assessment on how the
DDRR programme (Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration
programme which began in 2003 after the end of the civil war)
affected the person, current circumstances and current health status.
The
survey aimed at capturing dreams as well as compiling challenges. Addressing
all these challenges now constitute the strategy map for the IDEFOCS, HR&S and Action10 collaboration programme.
Addressing dream & the challenges
The dreams were expressed
as:
Everyone in Liberia lives in an environment that enables them to
have high quality life. Drugs, violence and crime are not part of their
lives. All Liberians lives in a home with their families. They have the
training of profession they wish, and they can all read and write. They
have employment or run their own business and earn enough income to sustain
their families. With the funds they earn they can have quality health
care and university education if they wish. They are safe in terms of
social and physical security. They are all part of the society as equal
Liberians.
Addressing stigma through radio.
The Ghetto
dwellers also shared that such support programme has to be offered
outside the ghetto. As long as they live inside the ghetto, any
sustainable changes of lifestyles are impossible. We have therefore procured a piece of land in a peaceful
village by the sea, the Little Bassa, one-hour drive from Monrovia. This
site is now the location of our “Re-integration of former child soldiers" programme. IDEFOCS has cleared the land from trees, dug a water well,
planted cassava and constructed a house where ghetto dwellers can stay
and benefit from a rehabilitation programme. The house shall eventually have twenty rooms and thus attract twenty clients at a time. IDEFOCS has also included
the community of Little Bassa, to ensure a loving and caring
environment.
The fishing village in Little Bassa
Our trauma counseling programme
We are now launching the trauma counseling programme. An HR&S team of
trauma counselling professionals in Sweden and Liberians living in Sweden, will educate and coach a
group of local mental health care providers in Liberia at our Support Centre in Painsville. The education
will be on-line and be addressing basic mental care. The training will
combine Swedish expertise and practice, African expertice and practice, and Liberian cultural traditions
and values.
Mental health care will then be offered at our house in Little Bassa and also at our Support centre in Buchanan that we run in collaboration with IDEFOCS. We will target former child soldiers, women associated
with fighting forces and others suffering from the cruelties of the past
war.
Our local mental
health care providers in Liberia are carefully selected and shall know how to interact with our
clients, with the families and the communities while building awareness
about mental health. We shall help our clients to understand mental
health conditions and encourage adherence to treatment. Long-term, our ambition is to set up a trauma counseling training school.
