Presentation
The centre Souriya offers hostel accommodation to 10 to 20 teenagers in difficult circumstances. Some of them are working, some study at school and others are apprentices at Liege carpentry, Uyarvu.
Souriya enables them:
to find a minimum of amenities (shelter, washing, laundry, food, a place to sleep, healthy, group activities.
to get out of bad habits and undesirable behaviour learned in the street.
to plan for the future, with the help of social workers.
to learn a skill at Volontariat (Uyarvu, carpentry, ..) or outside.
and most important, to be seen and treated as human beings, not as criminals.
If you come across a look that does not judge you, if you can speak about
a future that is not the street, if you can trust somebody, it is probably what motivates a teenager to make the necessary effort to get out of an easy life, for a more difficult one that Volontariat proposes to him.
Since 2006, the idea of a home for street children has expanded to other categories of children at risk: boys without a home and living on the street, orphans or semi- orphans, boys with behavioral problems, boys without resources coming from very poor families and wanting to have some training, boys who experienced serious family problems (separation or divorce, abandonment, violence), boys in danger of sexual abuse in the family, boys with physical handicap, homeless boys.
To accommodate all these boys, the centre is built on 3 levels:
On the ground floor: a reception room, kitchen, showers and toilets, the office room of the person In-charge and a flat for the staff.
Upstairs: 2 dormitories, 2 rooms, a television room that can serve as classroom and school support.
A large terrace allows them to refresh themselves, to dry their clothes or to do physical training.
Don’t believe that it is a success story for 100%: the boys have experienced severe difficulties in the street, but have also discovered a way of life without barriers. They begin to believe it is the true life! We have to take a psychological approach, specifically planned for each of them. The result may be seen only in the long term, so the apparent failures are numerous.
But is it a success only if they find jobs and enjoy a well-ordered existence? No one can say.
