Freetown – Supporting the most vulnerable juvenile prisoners on their path to social rehabilitation and reducing the risk of recidivism after serving their sentences – this is the goal of the non-governmental organization “Don Bosco Fambul ” of the Salesians of Don Bosco, which is committed to caring for juvenile prisoners in an overcrowded adult prison in Sierra Leone.
Specifically, the prison is located in Pademba, in Freetown, where over 1,500 men live in extreme conditions, without adequate access to food, water, medical care, or prospects for the future. The non-governmental organization is committed to changing this situation for minors and young people, who are often serving prison sentences for minor offenses and are subjected to all kinds of abuse.
The statement released by the Salesians of Don Bosco, who work in Sierra Leone, states that the project will provide a group of 220 prisoners with food, drinking water, medical care, and psychosocial support for 12 months. Literacy courses, legal assistance, and vocational training will also be offered to promote reintegration into society.
The phenomenon of imprisoned minors affects more than one million children and young people worldwide, whose liberty is deprived each year. Most of them are imprisoned for minor offenses or for wandering aimlessly on the streets at night. They have no legal assistance, no trial, and no one knows they are there. Many die without hope or stop eating to avoid suffering.
In such contexts, daily survival in Pademba is a victory, but also routine. The prison consists of four two-story wings with no sanitation, no light in the cells, and no water. Dozens of minors live there alongside adults accused of violent crimes or sexual assault. “They have no face, no name, no one to love or visit them, and their bodies are worthless or only as much as a plate of food,” denounced Argentine missionary Jorge Crisafulli , former director of the “Don Bosco Fambul” in Freetown, who was elected General Councilor for Missions in March of this year and until then served as Superior of the Province of Africa Nigeria Niger.
Since 2013, Salesian missionaries of Don Bosco, along with a group of volunteers, have visited the prison daily. They offer an additional meal, medical checks to treat wounds, psychosocial care, psychosocial support, and recreational activities twice a week. This prison is just one example of the work the Salesians of Don Bosco carry out in many prisons around the world . There, they care for, accompany, and assist the minors present. It was built in 1937 in the heart of Sierra Leone’s capital to house 324 inmates. In almost a century, it has changed only for the worse: there are no surveillance cameras, prisoner registration is done on a blackboard, and court records and files are still kept in handwritten folders. Inmates receive only one meal a day, and thousands of people are crammed together, sleeping seven, eight, or even nine in cells originally designed for one or two people, including many minors, who are, in most cases, innocent. In Pademba, there are also minors sentenced to years in prison for stealing a cell phone, for possessing it even though they didn’t steal it, for stealing a sheep or a motorcycle, for killing an animal, for breaking a window, or for being involved in a fight.
The prison’s Don Bosco group’s operational center is located in the library, where medical checkups are conducted, prayers are said for inmates before extra meals, and computers are available for computer science classes, bicycles, balls, and games for recreational use. At the other end of the prison is the chapel, where a Mass is celebrated every Friday. Every year on Holy Saturday, dozens of inmates receive the sacraments of Baptism, First Communion, and Confirmation after choosing to enter the Catholic Church.
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