Soldats
Child Soldiers in the DRC
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is immense. Some children have to be demobilized more than once, as they
either return to the camps of their own free will, or else are forced to return.
Once they are in fact demobilized and returned to their villages, the task still
remains to reintegrate them into their families and daily lives, ideally providing
education and/or vocational training that will help them in building a future for
themselves away from a life of violence.
This is a difficult and complex task, as the children have been shaped by their
experience in the camps, often developing an addiction to drugs as well as
having been encouraged in sexually inappropriate conduct and violence. They
have lived with a false sense of 'power' derived from the possession of
weapons and sometimes even a certain amount of authority, but in their
psychological development they are still children and can not integrate these
different aspects of their experience. They need continuous moral, financial,
communal and spiritual support in order to move forward from their
experiences and into a new life.
Village Committees for Child Protection
One way Ajedi-Ka/PES has worked to help with this transition has been in the
development of Village Committees for Child Protection (VCCP), which is a
committee composed of a pastoral figure, a wisewoman or wiseman, a leading
intellectual (such as a teacher), a representative of the local administration, and
a prominent business-person. The role of the VCCP is to monitor and report
any child rights violations, as well as to advocate for these children within the
village, help to repair damaged relationships, and provide psychological and
spiritual support to the children. (For more information in French on the VCCP
please click here).
Education and Seminars
Ajedi-Ka/PES also works to provide funding for education for the children as
well as vocational training. We provide Small Scale Business Management
training, which enables child soldiers--particularly girls with babies--to manage
their own self-sustaining business. We also seek to activate employment
opportunities for the older child soldiers, such as bricklaying, tailoring, etc as
well as funding education for the younger ones.
In 2007, Ajedi-Ka worked together with the Open Society Institute (OSI) to
organize a leadership and empowerment seminar for women and girls who are
former child soldiers or victims of sexual violence. This seminar was part;y
designed to give these women the tools needed to continue in leadership and
advocacy roles in their own communities to help prevent the cycle of abuse.
For full report on this initiative (in French), click here. For a brief report in
English click here.
Overview
We have experienced both success and failure in our rehabilitation efforts. The
current regional instability, poverty and lack of opportunities create a climate
that is hostile to this complex and delicate process. However, we have also
experienced great success with some children and hope that with continued and
flexible funding as well as a hopeful increase in political stability in the region,
our efforts will take continue to show a marked improvement in the lives of
these children and their families.
In August of 2006, Ajedi-Ka/PES Executive Director Bukeni T. Waruzi Beck
gave a detailed presentation to the American Jewish World Services in New
York City. Please click here for a link to his presentation, where you will find
facts and figures that give greater detail into our work in rehabilitation and
outline the successes and failures we have experienced to date.
