In 1983, Don Luigi Ciotti with some friends and volunteers had started a reception and reintegration project in Grand Bassam for young people in conflict with the law. Which continues today and which also affects victims of trafficking and severe exploitation
«Forty years that have not altered the dream». This is the spirit with which the Abele Group is celebrating an important anniversary in the Ivory Coast these days where – four decades ago – Fr Luigi Ciotti with some friends and volunteers started, in collaboration with the diocese of Grand Bassam and the Ivorian Ministry of Justice, a welcome and reintegration project for young people in conflict with the law. An initiative which, over time, has involved many fellow travelers and which still continues today with the same dream of creating more just worlds, starting from the places where poverty and injustice bite the most.
These are days of celebration in Grand Bassam – about thirty kilometers from Abidjan – where the Communauté Abel continues to promote literacy projects, the fight against trafficking in human beings and professional training and job placement. And where it has become a precious point of reference for young people in difficulty from the entire coastal region of Sud-Comoé, who meet in particular at the Carrefour Jeunesse, which is part oratory, part professional center and part “refuge ”. Here, since 2018, the “ChocoPlus” project has also been launched (in the picture), to promote in a fair and sustainable way one of the most typical products of the Ivory Coast: cocoa. And since November 2019, a real chocolate shop has also been opened. The latest addition, however, is the “Raffaele Masto” cultural center, inaugurated in 2022 and named after the well-known journalist and writer who died prematurely.
“It all started forty years ago, with a visit and an intuition from Don Luigi Ciotti, who realized the dramatic reality of imprisoned minors and wanted to offer them an alternative”, says Leone De Vita, the manager of the project, who has lived here since 2009 with his wife Francesca Piccinini, who takes care of administration and planning, and their 14-year-old daughter Marysol. Their home is inside a large farm, which represents another important element of the project, where training courses are held in the fields of agriculture, breeding and carpentry with the prison boys.
In 2020, a project for the reception and reintegration of children and young victims of trafficking was also launched. «Many boys and girls leave for Tunisia where there is no need for a visa – explains Leone -; from there, the passeurs make them transit towards Libya. If they survive the Libyan hell and the Mediterranean crossing, they arrive in Europe. But what often awaits them is a fate of serious exploitation. The Ivorians, men and women, are among the first nationalities of those who land in Italy in recent years, that is, since when Nigerians and Nigerians have practically disappeared.
But even in the country there is no shortage of forms of exploitation: mainly domestic and sexual for girls, work for boys. In cocoa crops alone, for example, Unicef estimates that over a million minors are involved and treated as real slaves. And many of them are also victims of trafficking.
For all of them, the Abele Group continues to commit itself with the same spirit of service and enthusiasm as it did forty years ago. «The economic aftermath of the pandemic, political instability, the constant threat of criminal organizations ready to exploit people’s fragility require us not to take a step back. But keep inventing new tools to build freedom and dignity – they say -. And the celebrations for the forty years, to the unleashed rhythm of local music, will not only be an opportunity to have fun together. But above all to relaunch a commitment that is even more necessary than ever”.
40 YEARS IN NUMBERS
5.000 young people who have received vocational training
10.000 literate people
6.000 people who have received food and health support
1.500 young people welcomed in the educational residential centre
25.000 attendance at the library and games room
500 young people whose business was financed by the Communauté