Several non-governmental organisations have shown interest in helping vulnerable kids in Sierra Leone, but Don Bosco Fambul has proved to be most dominant in humanitarian interventions.
The charitable organisation, Dons Bosco Fambul was founded by the famous Italian Roman Catholic priest, Giovanni Melchior Bosco commonly called Don Bosco.
The organisation remains exceptional in tending to the needy and less privileged by taking care of streets kids and improving the lives of young people for over two decades in Sierra Leone.
Don Bosco Fambul considers human development as one of the most valuable investment and an integral component in the development of any country.
Don Bosco Fambul believes that improvement of the human resource of any country is an investment that has no equal anywhere in the world.
The organisation is doing what it can to create an enabling environment where young people who were into anti-social activities could reform and transform their lives, learn better skills, acquire new competencies and attitudes for a better Sierra Leone.
To further capacitate the country’s youth population, Don Bosco Fambul is currently training some of its staff in Psychomotricity to equip them with standard knowledge in social work and related disciplines.
The organisation is planning to construct a modern therapy laboratory to deal with traumatic victims of sexual penetration, domestic violence and other gender-based violence.
In realisation of this objective, Don Bosco Fambul is capacitating some of it staff in advanced counselling services by encouraging them to offer the masters programme in Psychomotricity Skills in a Spanish university.
Many Don Bosco Fambul projects are geared towards improving the lives of young people, and by extension, the human capital development of Sierra Leone.
The ‘Hope plus’ Project, under Don Bosco Fambul, was established to cater for girls who were active in prostitution.
Social workers under, the ‘Hope Plus Project,’ identify these girls, assess their needs and address them according to their choice.
Most of them opt to continue their formal education and others choose to pursue careers in vocational training centres across the country.
Don Bosco Fambul provides start-up kits and find job placements in the tourism industry for those who enrol into vocational training, after completion of their various courses in catering, tailoring and hairdressing among others.
Today, the beneficiaries are independent and contribute to the socioeconomic development of Sierra Leone.
Those who are still pursuing courses either in formal or non-formal academic circles do so with great hope of committing their energies to the cause of nation building when they come as Don Bosco is ready to create the platform.
Although no residential provision exists for these girls like others in the other shelters, they are well taken care of. There are girls from the Girls’ Shelter project placed at the Maria Ines Vocational Training Centre in Lunsar to acquire skills like those under the ‘Hope Plus’ project.
The organisation takes pride in a project for inmates in correctional centres in Freetown, and has plans of extending same to other correctional centres across the country.
Don Bosco Fambul has facilitated the release of hundreds of inmates incarcerated in different correctional facilities who cannot afford to pay their fines.
The organisation has capacitated some inmates by enrolling them into a computer literacy programme it runs in correctional centres.
It is also placing some freed inmates into skills training institutions to acquire skills that will make them useful and productive, and stop them from reverting to vices that led them to correctional centres.
Different sponsorship programmes exist for those who want to further their formal education and many success stories abound.
CREDIT: Don Bosco PR Department