The juvenile penitentiary in Niamey (Niger) is home to a hundred boys. Many of them come from the border areas with Nigeria. It is a zone where Boko Haram carries out bloody actions by using children and kidnapping them from their families. Some of these children are even enlisted on the street due to poverty and desertion.
These kids, who are deprived of family affection, often have a bond with those adults who have exploited them, used them as instruments of violence, and forced them to commit small or big crimes.
You can see it in the children’s scattered and hardened looks that characterize many of them, especially during the first encounters in which the silence is difficult to break.
How can childhood be restored to these juveniles? How can we bring back a smile on their faces and hope for the future in their lives?
"For some months - says Sylvan, who is a member of the Community of Sant'Egidio in Niamey - we have been visiting the children regularly, specifically twice a week.
The occasion of the visit allows them to get out of the courtyard and play football, eat well with the good things that are brought by the Community; receive soap and clothes, and then chat together in an atmosphere of respect and sympathy. The feeling of being considered and loved is a great joy for these kids.
I am always very impressed when we enter the courtyard because we are greeted like relatives who are eagerly awaited: they greet us as if we were their parents, someone calls me dad".
The Community of Niamey - with few means, but with tenacity and passion - rebuilds their lives just like an adoptive family. We are helping them through visits, interviews, and even some simple material aid such as soap, clothes, and good food.
All of these things make the kids feel loved, often for the first time in their lives. So O., who is 17 years old, has started to smile again and dream of learning to be a mechanic after almost a year in a maximum-security prison. He was involved in unclear dealings with a family member.
While S., who is 16 but has never had a family, is waiting for a visit from his older friends to ask for advice on how to live a free life tomorrow. A life based on work and hope of building a future of his own.
With Sant'Egidio in the juvenile prison of Niamey
