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André LOKISSO describes to the readers of “Lien” his reinsertion scheme for child soldiers in Africa and requests their support for AIDC, the association he has created for that purpose. After a long career at BREDA in Dakar, Jan de Bosch KEMPER had a foundation set up by testament to combat illiteracy among youth with hearing disabilities in Senegal. Just as our colleagues in Geneva and New York, a group of retired and working staff members established at UNESCO a branch of the 1% for development Association. “Lien” is pleased to note that Martin ALMADA is keeping up his battle against the torturers of the Condor plan as well as his work on behalf of human rights. After receiving the alternative Nobel Prize in 2002, he was awarded the European solar Energy Prize 2005 in Berlin last December for his work in the areas of youth literacy and reinsertion in the framework of renewable energy development actions. Roger AUJAME’s activities in favour of hospitals in Afghanistan will be presented in the forthcoming issue of “Lien”. The concretisation of these projects depends on strong commitment to combating the forms of poverty endured in particular by ex-combatant child soldiers. I hope I have convinced you how vital it is to complement emergency humanitarian measures with steps to reinsert child soldiers into the community, empowering them to become actors for development. If you help a child soldier back into society via education, you will have rendered a service to humankind. May I say in conclusion that you, who have taken of your time to read this article, can also support this effort in material, financial or moral terms, according to your means, through your competencies and contacts. We would welcome volunteers for translation of our documents, for the organization of fundraising events… Your help is valuable and indispensable to us. We are already counting on you, so may we thank you most sincerely as of now. André Lokisso
Reinserting demobbed children
The idea of creating an association for the rehabilitation and reinsertion of ex-combatant children and young people came to me just before my retirement (in May 2000). After giving a talk on the situation of child soldiers during a mission to Geneva to represent UNESCO at the 56th session of the Commission of Human Rights, I had the opportunity to exchange views with many interested parties (United Nations Agencies, countries concerned, NGO and other representatives of civil societies). The declaration and the reports of the various delegations pointed to the high degree of violence and exploitation to which these children are prey. Participants went away from this highly sensitised to their plight. This is what encouraged me to join the adamant battle against this new menace and to help and share with others my experience in aiding these children who are victims of the madness of adults. When I left UNESCO, a group of friends and I took the necessary steps to set up a non-profit organization according to the French Law of 1901. The Association “Aid for the Integration of Demobbed Children” (AIDC) was founded on 13 June 2000. We sought through this initiative to make a modest contribution to the fight against poverty and for reinforcement of peace in Africa and in other developing countries. On the basis of a few lessons learnt from my contacts in Geneva, we designed a two-stage action plan: (i) An awareness-raising programme aimed at bringing the plight of child soldiers to the attention of Northern countries. This step must be taken prior to seeking solidarity among fundraising partners and sponsors to conduct fieldwork. (ii) The launching of operational projects for the rehabilitation and reinsertion of these children. The marked absence of relevant strategies for rehabilitating and reinserting demobbed children is certainly among the lessons I learned from my contacts in Geneva. Thus, we have taken an innovative approach that differs from other approaches which seek at all costs to put the demobbed child into a traditional school, where the lengthy coursework and curricula are often not adapted to their working life, or to return responsibility for these children to their original families or guardians, who are usually very poor and, under such circumstances, hardly able to play their most fundamental roles. The demobbed child, like the street child, who is forced to grow up prematurely, has lived in a violent environment and grown accustomed to fighting. That is why our approach emphasizes intensive short-term courses (general education, and technical and professional education) based on work-oriented teaching, alternative/rotating education and the principle of lifelong education. What distinguishes this approach of ours is a form of “social treatment”. Many like-minded initiatives boil down to material or financial aid aimed at addressing the immediate needs of child soldiers. Such approaches derive from legitimate humanitarian concerns and maintain their relevance. They are limited, however, in that they do not take into account the child’s self-reliance in the long term, since they leave the child soldier in a situation of double dependence on outside aid and on his family.
Our projects aim to change the social status of “assisted” to one of empowered “actor” in his or her own development as well is in that of his or her country’s, through the creation of co-operative villages providing settings for professional and social insertion. This approach has several advantages, notably: (1) it leads to visible and lasting results in a short time span; (2) on completing their courses, children are offered a follow-up framework to ease their insertion into the world of work; (3) it elicits discipline, teamwork, initiative (4) it ensures a minimum of organization so as to make optimal use of available energy and means and to avoid scattering; (5) it promotes concentration and coordination of various external inputs; (6) it has built-in evaluation mechanisms both at the individual child level and at the level of the project on the whole.
To be sure, for many, mainly financial, reasons, we have yet to implement the operational projects based on this strategy. But we are gradually attracting a number of partners. AIDC has been invited to international conferences and technical meetings (Children at War, Valencia, Spain, November 2003; Human Rights in the Francophone Countries with the Francophone International Organization, Brazzaville, Congo, April 2003). Jointly with an American NGO financed by USAID, we conducted, in September 2001, a technical identification mission on the situation of child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With the aid of the French authorities, AIDC also launched an awareness-raising campaign (conferences, debates, exhibitions) in the Parisian region on the problem of child soldiers. We have submitted to fundraisers our pilot project for rehabilitation and reinsertion of demobbed children in Democratic Republic of the Congo, which consists of two regional actions, one on the outskirts of Kinshasa and the other around Bukavu (South-Kivu).
* AIDC, 35, avenue Victor Hugo, 91440 - Bures s/ Yvette, France, - E-mail: [email protected]
Site web: www.aied.info - CCP La Source 38.819.40 R 033