In the town of Maroua, in Cameroon, the Shalom Centre, promoted by PIME, accompanies children and young people on paths of inclusion and autonomy and promotes awareness-raising actions to combat stigma and prejudices
Offer opportunities for growth and paths of autonomy to children and young people with disabilities and, at the same time, promote a culture that does not discriminate against and stigmatize those who are already in a vulnerable condition. This is the goal of the Shalom Center in Maroua (Extreme North of Cameroon), wanted and created by Father Danilo Fenaroli, a PIME missionary who has lived in this country for over thirty years. Today the Center is part of the social activities of the Bethlehem Foundation and for about two years the PIME Lay Association (Alp) has also been involved in its reorganization and awareness activities to help change the highly stigmatized image of people with disabilities especially psychic.
The Shalom Center, which is located in the Zileng district, functions as a day space that welcomes and takes care of around 25 children and young people five days a week, from Monday to Friday. In the morning a driver and an educator, with the motorbike, reach the children at their home and accompany them to the Center. Other educators take care of the reception and of both group and individual socialization activities: each child, in fact, has a personalized educational project shared with the family members. Currently the Center makes use of the collaboration of four educators with different roles, from coordinating activities to contact with the family, from taking charge of educational needs to preparing lunch.
In the afternoon, the children are taken back to their homes, a particularly important moment which allows families to receive observations and practical indications regarding their children; this so that there is more and more a common purpose in the rehabilitation practice, supported by effective and constant communication.
In recent times, a simple grid has been introduced as a working tool to help define an educational project for each child, in order to organize a program that highlights the strengths, from which to start in order to enhance capabilities in weak and fragile points. Starting from observation, with particular focus on motor skills, the cognitive aspect, personal autonomy, the social and socialization aspect, the communicational and health spheres, a program of activities with short, medium and long-term objectives, to improve everyone’s abilities especially with a view to increasing independence.
To achieve the objectives set, the active involvement of families is essential and for this reason meetings have been organized at their homes, according to needs and urgencies. Sharing stages were also planned at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the school year as a time for planning and evaluating the achievement – or not – of the objectives. It was also possible to complete the observation with a further professional look into the field of minor rehabilitation through collaborations with a movement specialist, a speech specialist and a psychomotrician, who can manage their patients, free of charge and on their own, in a room used as a consultation room at the Shalom Center facility.
The collaboration of these professional figures is free and also accompanies the training program for educational staff. This is one of the aspects to which great importance is given and the fruits are beginning to be seen: the degree of responsibility of the educators has grown together with the awareness that their work is not only one of care and does not concern only the aspect – although very important – of the welcoming and maternal warmth that must be offered; in fact, through their presence, young people are stimulated to overcome limits and incapacities in order to improve self-esteem, helping them to become as independent as possible and increase their quality of life.
Furthermore, the spaces of the Center have also been improved, for example through the construction of a well to have easier access to water to satisfy the needs for feeding, cleaning, hygiene of the structure and of the body. Various fruit trees have been planted: lemons, oranges, tangerines, grapefruits, bananas, guavas and papayas, important for daily nutrition as they are rich in vitamins, but also useful for creating shaded and cool areas when the climate becomes hot. Flowering plants embellish and make the Center more welcoming, which has also been repainted and the external veranda has been improved in order to have increasingly fresh and hospitable environments. The games that facilitate children’s learning, the seesaws, the swings and the parallel bars damaged by the fall of a tree trunk have also been repaired.
The cultural context in which the Shalom Center operates does not facilitate its work: usually the disease, the handicap, the birth of a child who is not “normal” or who has malformations continue to be seen as a consequence of an external force, a spirit that intervenes in the human being and modifies his nature. The situation of fragility and dependence of a mentally handicapped person, the fact that he cannot “heal” and that he will never be able to provide help to the family group mean that it is difficult for the family to invest to respond to his specific needs.
To counter stigma and prejudice, but also fear and social reproach, the Center promotes awareness-raising initiatives in the neighborhood and in the city of Maroua. After having involved civil, traditional and religious authorities on several occasions, a reflection group was created on these issues in which representatives of the Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and Islamic communities participate, with the intention of giving birth and growing a new perspective , different, welcoming and respecting human dignity even when it presents itself and manifests itself in its greatest fragility.
With some groups of young people from the neighborhood, moments of celebration and conviviality were also organized at the Shalom Center. Through these joyful experiences for the children, it was also possible to restore to the guests the “normality” that can be experienced in relationships with people who are judged to be different.
It is also a great challenge from a Christian and missionary point of view: it means making our own the loving gaze that Christ has for each one and in particular for those who are most vulnerable, fragile, small, needy and excluded: a merciful gaze that generates life.
Gigi Santambrogio with the guys from the Shalom Center