Feeding marginalized youth at Kissy Ferry Terminal, Freetown

During its successful campaign against election violence last year, Hope Sierra Leone (H-SL) identified the many gangs of unemployed youths as one of the volatile elements contributing to violence. The country's brutal civil war, 1991-2001, involved many child soldiers - disrupting education and families - and left the economy devastated. Many youths live on the streets in extreme poverty with little prospects of employment. Against this background, H-SL initiated a series of outreach programmes to vulnerable youths through its Moral Foundations for Democracy (MFD) programme.

Hope Sierra Leone is a local non-government organization (NGO) affiliated to Initiatives of Change. MFD is a programme originally designed to help the Military, Police and Civil Society reconcile with each another and become initiators of change for a healthy and peaceful democratic society. Since the launching of the programme in January 2005, sixty two (62) people from the military, police and civil society have been certified by the international faculty to facilitate MFD courses and outreach programmes. The five-day residential courses, usually held monthly, and one-day outreach programmes in the provinces, have been very successful. Between September 2006 and March 2008 a total of fifteen courses and outreach programmes were conducted, with four hundred and fifty (450) and nine hundred (900) participants respectively.

The first MFD outreach programme for vulnerable youths took place on 27th June 2008, in the Kissy Ferry Terminal area of Freetown. 80% of the people in this area are youths, many of them engaged in transporting luggage to and from ferries, and directing people and vehicles in and out of the ferries. Others are engaged in petty trading or just hang around. Most of them sleep in nearby abandoned ferries.

Initially, it was very difficult to engage their interest in the programme, but through the youths' Chairman, they eventually agreed to participate. The Faculty comprised four newly certified facilitators who lived locally, and one experienced faculty member. A total of sixty (60) were expected, but in spite of inadequate resources, eighty five (85) were eventually allowed to participate. The programme included sessions on 'who am I', 'conflict transformation', and 'standing against corruption', which generated a very lively discussion as participants identified the causes of corruption and the people involved in it. A time of quiet contemplation gave space for the participants to reflect on their own potential as agents of positive change.

At the end, participants were invited to share their experiences from the day's events.

• 'You have made us realize that we are important in the society and therefore promise to uphold the values that we have learnt, by passing it on to our friends who did not partake in the programme.'
• 'The session that makes me reflect is: "Who Am I?" I am very bitter for the way politicians have been treating us women in this community.... We should be respected and recognized in our various communities, and so the session on "Who Am I?" has posed a lot of questions in my mind. I am grateful for this training because I have learnt a lot of things.'
• 'I have a lot of grievances... I have been arrested and detained unlawfully by the police... I consider them as an enemy because I know they will continue to arrest me unlawfully until I leave this community. But with all what I have heard and even the ASP talking to us, I will change my perception about the police and try to change my attitude so that we will all work as one in the community.'

The programme ended with a vote of thanks and chorus titled 'Leh we tell God tenki for watin e do for we.' (Let us thank God for what he has done for us.) The participants pleaded for H-SL to organize another such programme.