{"id":306962,"date":"2019-06-14T20:02:45","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T18:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/cameroon-so-many-girls-suffering-calls-for-a-response\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:39:51","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:39:51","slug":"cameroon-so-many-girls-suffering-calls-for-a-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/cameroon-so-many-girls-suffering-calls-for-a-response\/","title":{"rendered":"Cameroon: so many girls suffering calls for a response"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sponsored by a group of Focolare Volunteers, a centre in Douala takes in girls who have been exploited, assaulted or abused, offering training courses that are both holistic and professional.<\/em> \u201cWe looked around us, and, feeling pained and powerless at the dramatic situations that some teens go through in parts of our city, we asked ourselves what we could do.\u201d This is how Albine Essene, from Douala, Cameroon, describes the spark of inspiration that brought her and a group of Focolare Volunteers to commit to caring for girls who have been victims of exploitation, assault and abuse. In 1998 they started the HUPJEFI social centre (Halte Utile Pour Jeunes Filles) in Douala. \u201cMany are just teens,\u201d she continues, \u201cwho each night are on the street, especially in front of hotels and restaurants, forced to prostitute themselves to get money to survive. Many are minors, so we\u2019re talking about real-life abuse.\u201d How did you begin?<\/strong> \u201cOne evening, one of us stopped with her husband to meet one of these girls and welcomed her into their home. They then contacted her parents so she could go back to her family. \u201cThis episode raised many questions in our hearts: How could we continue to help her? How could we help other girls? \u201cWhat we needed was a centre to take them in and offer them holistic training. We put what we had in common; someone offered their house, another offered to take care of the girls, someone else gave their time to get information from social workers, and others put in money. \u201cOur first location was in the city centre, where prostitution is quite widespread. We began with two girls, but it wasn\u2019t long before the house was full. We then created three other centres for girls aged 14\u201322. \"d\u00e97\"\u201cOur work includes listening to them, looking after their intellectual and social development, and even organising sessions on emotional and sexual training through the EVA programme (\u2018Life and Love Education\u2019) \u201cWe then set up a professional training centre, with courses on writing, business law, haircutting, sewing \u2013 all activities aimed at helping them integrate socially. We are the only centre in the country with holistic training for them.\u201d Over the years, you have come to know many girls, over 300. Are there some stories that you particularly remember?<\/strong> \u201cI have many in my heart. I remember one girl who confided to us that she had problems relating to her mother, which led her to decide to marry a boy she was with. We asked her if she loved him, since marriage is an important decision, not a way to escape problems. \u201cShe listened to us without saying anything. The day after, in a letter, she explained that she didn\u2019t love the boy. A week later she came back to thank us. She had found the courage to break her engagement and had asked her mother to forgive her. Peace had returned between them. \u201c\u2018I feel so free now,\u2019 she said. \u201cThen there was another who always came late, explaining that each day, before coming to the centre, she was with a boy without her family knowing. He had promised her many things. \u201cWe put her on her guard, explaining to her that some men take advantage of financially vulnerable girls and abuse them. We tried to understand if she had weighed the consequences of these kinds of meetings (injuries, sexually transmitted disease, unwanted pregnancy, etc.). If the boy had good intentions, he should introduce himself to her parents. \u201cShe listened to us. A short while later she ended her relationship and started to attend a professional training centre for sewing. \u201cThere were some difficulties there as well. Not having any means of transportation, she always had to walk there, until one day she met a man who offered to give her a lift. He then started to make appointments for her in bars or hotels. \u201cFeeling in danger, she came back to our centre to ask for help. Today she is highly regarded by all the teachers at the school she attends and is preparing for final exams.\u201d <\/p>\n

Anna Lisa Innocenti<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sponsored by a group of Focolare Volunteers, a centre in Douala takes in girls who have been exploited, assaulted or abused, offering training courses that are both holistic and professional.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}