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LE SAUVEUR:

Les jeunes à risque mènent un changement positif

[/vc_column_text][/vc_colonne][/vc_row][vc_row][largeur vc_column = »2/3″][vc_column_text]Sept ans de prison. Sept ans de potentiel volé. Sept ans pour devenir un criminel endurci. Sept ans que Juan José peut désormais contribuer positivement à la société.

À Santa Ana, Le sauveur, 17-Juan José, âgé d'un an, partage le fait qu'un tribunal pour mineurs l'a déclaré coupable de trafic de drogue, il aurait été condamné à une période de confinement d'au moins sept ans. Les autorités l'ont arrêté avec une mallette remplie de huit livres de marijuana d'un endroit à un autre contre paiement.. Mais aujourd'hui, plutôt que de raconter son histoire derrière les barreaux, Juan José a réintégré la communauté. Il fait du bénévolat dans un centre de sensibilisation Alianza Joven dans la zone rurale. Les avions d'El Ranchador sont gérés par l'Alliance régionale de la jeunesse d'Amérique centrale, financée par l'USAID., un partenariat entre les États-Unis et le système d’intégration centraméricain (SICA).

Cibler les jeunes à risque, le programme est connu sous le nom d'Alianza Joven Regional USAID-SICA et a été conçu comme un programme abordable, transférable, et durable pour prévenir la violence des gangs dans les communautés les plus vulnérables de la région. Pour atteindre cet objectif, le programme établit des, alliances public-privé, qui reconnaissent et engagent tous les membres de la communauté en tant que parties prenantes de l'initiative.

« Les centres tentent de réduire les facteurs de risque qui poussent les jeunes à commettre des actes de violence. Ce risque va de pair avec le manque d'identité et avec les gars qui errent sans but, ne sachant pas ce qu'ils veulent, » dit le directeur du programme, Harold Sibaja. À travers divers ateliers et jeux, les communautés qui ont créé un centre de sensibilisation ont connu une réduction des taux d'homicides, vol, vol, et viol, entre autres délits.

Au centre Alianza Joven à Planes d'El Ranchador, Juan José attribue au programme le changement de sa perspective et de ses objectifs pour l'avenir: « je’j'ai beaucoup changé, avant que personne ne m'arrête, j'irais dans la rue. [Au centre] J'ai trouvé comment ne pas m'ennuyer, » dit le mineur, qui apprend maintenant l'informatique, Anglais, et de la musique et participer à diverses activités dans tout le centre et la grande communauté.

Des valeurs telles que la camaraderie et l'unité ont refait surface parmi les jeunes de cette zone rurale, historiquement considéré par les autorités comme l'un des plus dangereux de Santa Ana en raison de la forte présence de gangs. Juan José et son 200+ les pairs sont le visage de ce changement.[/vc_column_text][/vc_colonne][largeur vc_column = »1/12″][/vc_colonne][largeur vc_column = »1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id= »barre latérale-primaire »][/vc_colonne][/vc_row]

Juan Jose Hernandez’s professional trajectory has been anything but conventional. From the priesthood he turned to psychiatry and from there to becoming El Salvador’s chief of police following a brutal civil conflict. Encore, says Hernandez, throughout these years, he was not meandering aimlessly.

Serene though with a contagious energy, Hernandez has traveled wide in search of self-understanding so that he can enrich the lives of those he serves. His story is as compelling as it is inspirational to those who come into contact with him.

“The seminary, psychiatry, the police, they all have a common purpose and that is to help others,” said Hernandez, currently the program officer for the Regional Youth Alliance USAID-SICA project, which is implemented in El Salvador, Guatemala et Honduras. The goal of USAID-SICA is to provide constructive alternatives to a life on the street for youth-at-risk and former gang members. “I learned from the different fields: from the seminary, I learned empathy, from psychiatry, I learned science and in my years with the police I learned the significance of action.”

À 13, Hernandez’s mother took him to see the bishop after he informed her of his desire to become a priest. The bishop was none other than the late Monsignor Oscar Romero, a committed human rights advocate whose outspokenness led to his assassination in 1980. Though Hernandez did not join the seminary there and then, Romero told him if he still wanted to become a priest after his high school graduation, he could do so then. “He, Romero, told me, he would wait for me,” Hernandez recalled. It was to be their first and last meeting, “but, [Romero] remains an inspiration for me and many others.”

Au cours des prochaines années, Hernandez led the life of a typical teenager with few thoughts of the seminary. Cependant, after graduating high school at 17, Hernandez entered the seminary. Five years later and two years shy of his ordination, Hernandez abruptly changed course, and moved to Italy to study psychiatry. “I would have been a priest at 24-years old. I was afraid to fail,” Hernandez noted.

Despite the raging conflict in El Salvador, Hernandez returned to his country in 1988, and having had significant training in clinical psychiatry, he took a post at a psychiatric hospital. When the conflict ended, he re-directed the course of his professional life by joining the national civilian police force. “I felt I could be most useful there, because after the war there was a need to build the peace, it was my way of supporting the movement toward peace, public security. It was essential,” said Hernandez who eventually became chief of police.

Spending nearly a decade with the civilian police gave Hernandez insight into the needs of the population and an awareness of those most likely to fall victim to crime. From the civilian police, Hernandez joined the UN Mission in El Salvador which later transferred him to their Guatemala office. Au Guatemala, he joined a small USAID-funded program, the Youth Alliance Program, aimed at marginalized communities and youth-at-risk, the precursor of today’s Regional Youth Challenge USAID-SICA project. Implemented by Creative Associates International on behalf of USAID, the youth project has mobilized communities and businesses in its efforts to rehabilitate former gang members and to provide safe spaces where marginalized youth spend free time constructively.

“Last year, 7 youth with whom we worked were killed by other gang members,” said Hernandez. “You feel angry when they die, they’re gone.” Hernandez’s natural calm and good humor faded momentarily in anguish. "Mais, at the same time you take some comfort in knowing that person had shifted his life in the right direction, was on the good side.”

Hernandez has been deeply influenced by psychiatrist and holocaust survivor Victor Frankl who taught that, no matter what the situation, people have the freedom to choose the course that will alter their circumstances allowing them to transcend horrendous suffering. This human capacity to overcome dehumanizing circumstances by becoming spiritually and mentally whole again is at the core of Frankl’s teaching and guides Hernandez’s work with young people.

Despite the seriousness of his life’s work, Hernandez concedes, “I am happy with my history.”

“I believe sincerely that we are here to help others. Neither riches nor genius is needed » il dit, « only a heart and a desire to help others. Creative Associates and USAID have given me the opportunity to help those who really need help in their communities, especially youth-at-risk.”

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LE SAUVEUR:

Outreach Centers Enable Youth to Learn New Skills

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Back in the 1990s, Pastor Carlos Artiga called himself “Flash,” after a TV superhero who confronted villains with super-human powers. But Artiga, a member of the notorious 18th Street gang at the time, was no hero.

Aujourd'hui, cependant, he is helping society as Pastor of the Abba Patter Evangelical Ministry and director of an Outreach Center which serves young people whom he understands all too well – youth-at-risk in San Salvador’s Lourdes barrio. The center called “Por Mi Barrio” or For My Neighborhood, serves 280 youth daily, many of whom come at Artiga’s invitation.

The Lourdes Por Mi Barrio is one of 14 such centers established in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras by Creative Associates International, Inc.. de Washington, DC. with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development and donors including the Rotary Club and IBIS, entre autres.

These centers have been established through the Youth Challenge Alliance Program of USAID/Guatemala and the Regional Youth Alliance USAID-SICA programs. The programs are based on a Creative methodology that seeks to help reduce the level of gang activity in Central America by engaging youth in skills-building and vocational training.

“Creative Associates has developed a new philosophy with the Outreach Centers," a déclaré Harold Sibaja, Chief of Party of Creative’s Youth Challenge Alliance program in Guatemala. “The beneficiaries who come to the Centers learn about computers, arts, sports or just to meet other youth, get trained in leadership, conflict management and community service.

“Our intent is to develop a new leadership that promotes a culture of life in contrast to the culture of death and fear that reigns in many of these communities," Sibaja a dit. “Next month Guatemala will open 10 new Outreach Centers. By December 2009, there will be 37 Centers in operation in the three countries. With these additional Centers we expect to serve a population of more than 9,000 youth.”

Salvador Stadthagen, based in El Salvador, director for the Regional Youth Alliance USAID-SICA, said the Centers are emerging as low-cost sustainable alternatives that rely heavily on community volunteers who engage at-risk youth in productive activities. Plus que 4,000 young people and 300 volunteers are already part of the Outreach Center effort in the three countries.

Orphaned at age 11 and without family or guidance, Artiga fit the profile of youth who are vulnerable to gang recruitment. He joined 18th Street at age 17 dans 1993 in search of security and a surrogate family. But gang life failed to fill the void. Artiga felt alone and betrayed by friends. “I was addicted to crack, and ended up with lots of gunshot wounds,” Artiga said.

Through a chance encounter, he met a stranger who told him about Jesus and redemption. Artiga joined the church and found a way out of gang life and a way to do good for society and himself.

“The role of the church was huge in my ability to reform,” Artiga said. “The church enabled me to take theology classes, helped me find a job, became my family, my community and support.”

Heidi Moran, a coordinator at the Santa Caterina Pinula Por Mi Barrio center in Guatemala, arrived at the center in May 2007 and says, “I joined the center because I fell in love with the idea that youth have somewhere to go everyday, see the same people and have a routine.

“The youth must understand that coming to the outreach center requires them to change certain aspects of their lives,” Moran said. “Their outlook is often limited to 25 ans. If they join a gang, their lifespan will be cut short, so we try to have them establish long-term goals.”

—Alexandra Pratt and Linda Adami[/vc_column_text][/vc_colonne][largeur vc_column = »1/12″][/vc_colonne][largeur vc_column = »1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id= »barre latérale-primaire »][/vc_colonne][/vc_row]

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LE SAUVEUR:

A Second ‘For My Neighborhood’ Youth Outreach Center Opens its Doors

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SAN SALVADOR – Oct. 23, 2008 – The Regional Youth Alliance USAID-SICA opened its second youth Outreach Center in El Salvador, this one in Lourdes where it provides youth a chance to learn new skills away from the influences of gangs.

The Lourdes Outreach Center will offer computer training, maintenance and repair courses, tailoring and baking, entre autres activités. The Center will also offer workshops that raise awareness of the dangers of drug use and engage community volunteers as teachers.

“Right after cutting the ribbon, it was great to see all those kids go to the computers and, in many cases, use them for the first time,» a déclaré Salvador Stadthagen, Creative’s Director of the Regional Youth Alliance USAID- SICA program.

A pioneering program, the Regional Youth Alliance provides alternatives for at-risk youth who are vulnerable to the lure of gangs in their poor neighborhoods. The Alliance is a collaboration among the U.S. Agence pour le développement international, the Central American Integration System (SICA) et Creative Associates International, Inc.. that launched earlier this year. This timely project is a direct response to the public security, investment and development challenges confronting Central America because of youth gangs. Gang activity has contributed to driving crime rates in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador – where the Alliance is active – to among the highest in the region.

Le projet, known in Spanish as Alianza Joven Regional, offers a unique approach to the social challenges posed by disaffected youth in the region. Building on Creative’s successful Guatemala Youth Alliance Program, also funded by USAID, the program serves to help reconcile country-specific approaches and the lack of coherent legislation in Central America to lead to the development of regional solutions to address gang violence.

The Lourdes “For My Neighborhood” Outreach Center is the second to be opened in El Salvador after the Father Rafael Palacios Educational and Vocational Center (Directeur financier) chez les Mexicains, and brings to 10 the number of centers opened in the region; eight of the centers are in Guatemala. At least three more centers are expected to open in El Salvador within the next year; each center will serve about 300 jeunes, âge 9 à 21.

“We would like to think that keeping these young people away from entering gangs would be just a click away, but it is more complex than that, dit Stadthagen. “But by showing them a wider world, paying them a little attention, helping the kids with homework so they stay in school, which is part of what an Outreach Center does, will certainly go a long way.”

The Lourdes Outreach Center is also supported by Iglesia del Camino Lourdes, a neighborhood church established by Pastor Jaime Guatemala, at the age of 21, 10 years ago. Today, Pastor Guatemala’s congregation has grown to 400 membres.

Pastor Guatemala has big ambitions for Lourdes, Stadthagen said. “He wants to see less violence and does not want to see Lourdes go the way Soyapango, a local community with extremely high violence, is going.”

Located just 10 miles west of San Salvador in the Municipality of Colon, Lourdes is densely populated with 2,500 people per square mile and a total population just under 200,000. It’s known to be among the most violent areas in the country with 130 communities and more than 100 active gangs.

In addition to Stadthagen and Pastor Guatemala, the inauguration was attended by USAID Democracy and Governance Officer, Jennifer Link, SICA legal counsel, Cesar Salazar, and El Salvador government officials.

“We will dedicate all our energy, all our care, so we turn this Center into a true space of hope for the youth of Lourdes,” said Pastor Guatemala. “This brings hope to Lourdes, we can now dream of a new Lourdes. This Center will be all what the community wants it to be, specially the volunteers who will be the ones that truly run this Center.”

To read more about the launch of the Lourdes Outreach Center in Spanish, Cliquez ici.

-Alexandra Pratt[/vc_column_text][/vc_colonne][largeur vc_column = »1/12″][/vc_colonne][largeur vc_column = »1/4″][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id= »barre latérale-primaire »][/vc_colonne][/vc_row]