In these years - thank to long distance adoption - life of many
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Children and the war

A. Uganda
In the past 14 years, some areas of Uganda have been devastated by violent and brutal conflicts. In particular, the northern districts have been subject to continuous and violent attacks by the LRA guerrillas, resulting in a huge number of victims and widespread material damage. These attacks delay an adequate and complete development of the economic and social life. Incursions, assaults and fires in the villages, food raids, killings, mutilations, and kidnappings of adults and children are common.

Youth are kidnapped from their homes, villages, camps, and schools and are enslaved, tortured, manipulated, and forced to torture and kill. They become "child soldiers" who are forced to serve the rebels in various ways (the little girls become their "wives"). Between 1996 and 1999, UNICEF estimated that more than 10,000 children, aged between 7 and 14, were kidnapped. Almost half of them were able to escape and go back to their districts, after more or less long periods of captivity, with the need of physical and/or psychological care and reintegration into their communities of origin, at that point very often hostile to their presence.

In Kitgum district, AVSI, together with the district's social service, first identified local human resources able to contribute to the reintegration of kidnapped children: volunteers in the community who, by charisma, social position, or desire, have the role of helping others; old people who have at heart the traditional values; associations and local groups that had been trying to support a dialogue of peace and reconciliation; and teachers who already work with children in schools. AVSI then promoted dialogue and collaboration among these resources to create a network and strengthened their ability to identify needs and answer them. This support network did not attempt to substitute itself for the community, but served to sustain it and make it more aware and responsible in finding answers and formulating plans of action.

These formative interventions represent some of AVSI's main activities of the Kitgum psycho-social project and include training, sensitization, and follow up of training. Their main objective is to make the person aware of his/her needs and to strengthen the individual and collective resources, thus enabling the person to take his/her own decisions. The relationship with the other - child or adult as he/she may be, with his/her desire for meaning in all the suffering lived, provokes the freedom of the educator, who is required to share his life and to find answers that would give meaning to the person's past experiences. Sharing the situation that the other lives and the common search for an answer foster change in both parties. It also helps to recover confidence between the child and the world of the adult, a relationship that had been lost due to traumatic events.

We focus on personal attitudes (confidence, self-consciousness, self-awareness), on relating to others (cooperation, friendship), and on the network of social relationships (family, friends and acquaintances, organizations, and local authorities). We promote different interventions that allow the children to express feelings and emotions connected to the painful events and at the same time help them to rebuild continuity (between past, present, and future), which had been interrupted by the trauma.

Expression and of communication of the personal experience takes different forms, depending upn the culture and local tradition.

The book Where is My Home--co-sponsored by UNICEF and edited in collaboration with AVSI, Save the Children, and World Vision-is a collection of drawings from the kidnapped children, evacuated and sheltered in North Uganda. These drawings were made during their recovery and reintegration and drawn with local cooperation (in centers by educators, in schools by teachers, in the community by families and volunteers).

B. Rwanda
AVSI has been present in Rwanda since 1994. Rwanda still suffers heavily from the effects of the war of that year, which radically altered the demographic composition of the country, so much so that still today 70% of the population is made up of women--half of whom are widows or have been abandoned by their husbands--and by neglected minors. In recent years, even though the political situation of the country seems stable, many problems remain (especially for children), as a consequence of the war, even worsened by a serious economic crisis. In the area of Kigali and other urban centers, the number of children living in the streets has increased. In the countryside, many familial nuclei are supported by "head of family children" forced to work to provide food for the numerous young siblings with whom they live.

Since the beginning of its presence in August 1994, AVSI has developed projects in favor of vulnerable children and their families, in collaboration with the government and local communities. Its continuous presence and the good relations developed through the years with the governmental institutions and the population enabled AVSI to remain up-to-date on local needs so that the proposal of new projects is informed and current. AVSI's intervention in Rwanda has always been characterized by the support of the family and community, which have always carried out a leading role in the life and tradition of the Rwandan people.

The the well-being of children and families i promoted through projects that highlight the reintegration of children (school support and sponsoring of cultural and sport activities), the rehabilitation of the environment and house restoration, and the economic development of families (support for income-generating activities). AVSI's projects are implemented with local personnel, present in every "commune" of intervention. In particular, AVSI supports the "head of family children" and to the local associations of widows, providing solidarity for those more vulnerable.

C. Kosovo
During the years of exclusion and indifference in which the country lived before the conflict and consequently after the war, the children in Kosovo have experienced great suffering and mourning, lacking the normal experiences of learning and socialization--experiences necessary for personality development. Such needs are more acute in rural areas, which have very few services and where children live isolated from those of their own age. Moreover, the majority of families live in a state of extreme poverty, which prevents them from providing for the most elementary needs of the children.

Since 1999, AVSI has been present throughout Kosovo, carrying out projects in different sectors, such as in the educational and social fields, in rebuilding destroyed areas, and in emergency food distribution followed by support in the agricultural sector as well.

The "Houses for Refugees" project has reconstructed 400 houses and restored others for a total of 2,800 families in the municipalities of Peja, Istog, and Shtimlje. Other funds have allowed for the reconstruction of schools in the villages. In cases of emergency and of unreliable food supply, the "Bread for Refugees" project, through the distribution of food and first aid supplies, has carried out intervention in centers scattered all over the region, which have then ensured the capillary distribution throughout the whole territory.

Vocational training courses for technician and for the development of new skills and technologies for the devolopment of the agro-food sector have been established, including internships in Italy.
The "Program for Infancy and Youth in Kosovo" project, which AVSI started in 1999 and carried out together with UNICEF, supports meeting points for the youth and cultural interchange among the different ethnic groups, providing an adequate environment in which young people can freely express themselves. This project--in cooperation with the schools, local NGOs, and young people of the area--has tried, concretely, to answer to the social-expressive needs of about 400 children.

The "Recreational Activities in Schools" project of the year 2000 has a twofold purpose. First, it offers 30 young people theoretical and practical training in group leadership. Second, the leaders actually gain experience in using the knowledge and resources they receive during training. This happens through planning, organization, and supervision of recreational activities for children and infants in the schools of the villages and in other selected centers.

The AVSI intervention program involves different disciplinary areas, including pedagogical, psychosocial, methodological, and practical. The totality and unity of one's personal components is completely enhanced, with a focus on the individual's attitudes (confidence, self-consciousness, self-awareness) and on his/her network of social relationships (families, communities, associations, organizations, and local authorities).

For the success of such interventions a decisive role has been played by the concrete and continuous involvement of the young people, their families, the communities and villages they belong to, the institutional entities, and the civil society of the territory. Thus self-organization, human resources, and the already-existing structures in the area (places and events where the different social realities meet) are stimulated and supported.