Providing support

SUPPORT AND PROMOTION OF CHILDREN AND YOUTHS

Activities carried out

•  Identification of children and young people in exploitation sites, streets and the markets

•  Listen and counselling with parents and young people

•  Reintegration in their families of origin, foster homes, various accommodation centres or the ASSEJA accommodation centre

•  Education by means of a programme on life abounding six levels

•  Vocational guidance

•  Professional training in private workshops and/or those of ASSEJA

•  Support in installation for the exercise of the learned trades

•  Follow-up/accompaniment in the management of income generating activities

The afore-mentioned activities are in adequacy with the shutters developed hereafter following the example:

a - Prevention

Prevention passes via sensitization (through various channels), information of the children, the parents and the community on the manifestations of the plagues to be fought, and their consequences, the mobilization of the society, the reinforcement of the material and financial capacities of the potential victims, etc.

b- Education

ASSEJA implements a Program of Education on Life for the children and young people whom it caters for. The afore-mentioned program has as aim to lead them to observe the elementary rules of life in society, adopt clean and responsible attitudes and habits, better organise themselves in their future homes, and to regular illnesses.

Each child trained by ASSEJA goes through the Program of Education on Life in the form of sessions or residential seminars animated by the trainers of the NGO. Educational supports are elaborated in the form of booklets or charts, which are distributed to the children at the end of the animation of the modules. This program comprises six respectively matched levels of modules. Level 0 is exempted only in the event of need.

•  Level 0  : Alphabetisation

•  Level 1  : Citizenship and rules of hygiene

•  Level 2  : Health

•  Level 3  : The choice of a trade or IGA and STD/HIV/AIDS

•  Level 4  : Nutrition

•  Level 5  : Social and family Economy

•  Level 6 : The management of micro enterprise and childcare.

c-  Vocational training

The training comes up after the teaching of the 03 first levels of the life education programme. At this stage, children are stable, conscious and have received a minimum education that can enable them start learning a trade.

The trades proposed are:
- Dyeing;
- Painting;
- Silk-screen printing;
- Engraving;
- Drawing and caricature art;
- Carpentry;
- Engineering;
- Sewing;
- Motor electricity;
- Refrigeration and air conditioning.
- Agriculture

-etc

After the workshops are identified, negotiations are made; then training follows after the signing of contracts with the craftsmen in charge of the trainings. 1895 youths have been placed either in ASSEJA’s Productive Training Workshops (PTW) or in private workshops.
The choice of a workshop depends on the youth’s residential area and the professional skills of the craftsman in charge of the training. The duration of the training varies from trade to trade. Regular monitoring of the training is conducted twice a month by the facilitators to ensure that the training is effective. ASSEJA provides funds for the training, accommodation and sometimes nutrition and health support for the youths. The end of training is marked by the handing over of end-of-course certificates, one by ASSEJA and another by the craftsman who did the training. During training, the parents of these youths prepare the working tools necessary for their children to set up their own workshops. These tools are handed to them during the certificate award ceremony.

In order to encourage the youths to open their own workshops; they are trained on project designing and the quest for funding. During their training, projects are prepared and designed for them individually alongside a fact sheet to facilitate the designing of these micro projects. 04 youths networks have been created.

d- Professional integration

The «Socio-professional integration of Children" refers to an operation whereby a child or a group of children are incorporated into a community or a given environment both socially and professionally. After their training, the youths sponsored by ASSEJA have the opportunity to be recruited in private workshops or open their own workshops. For those of them wishing to open their workshops, ASSEJA gives them technical assistance that implies designing their projects, taking into consideration the nature of the project, the youth’s personal contribution of 70% and their needs. ASSEJA may, in terms of its contribution, help the youth open their workshop; in addition to technical expertise, a grant amounting to 30% of the total cost of the project is equally given. The professional integration approach adopted by ASSEJA is not only aimed at making the child independent, i.e. the self-employment of the trained youths, but it is also for the chain of solidarity of the said youths. This is a process whereby children who were victims of abuse and have received professional training in various trades are required to teach other children brought to them by ASSEJA.

3 - THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF ASSEJA IN THE DOMAIN OF EDUCATION

 - 5100 underprivileged children and youths have received support since 1994
 - 1895 underprivileged children have been trained since 1994  
 - 435 youths are practising as micro-entrepreneurs the trade they learned, that is they have opened their own

     private workshops
 - 268 children have gone back to school
 - 81 children who are trafficking victims have been rehabilitated
 - 12 productive training workshops have been set up for the training of youths in Yaounde
 - About 300 youths receive prompt supported every year