Guinea: The profession of youth worker, a coming profession
15 Jun 2012 Juvenile justiceGuinea
Hawa Barratou Bah, “protection assistant” for young prisoners in Guinea, spoke after the last training course carried out by the Terre des hommes’ team. This course aimed at improving the work of social youth workers who, although only 36 in number for the whole of Guinea, should ensure the monitoring and respect for penal procedures for many hundreds of youngsters.
What is the situation in Guinea for youth workers in the prison administration? Why should they get training?
The profession of youth worker is a new category in Guinea. There are only 36 of them in the whole country, of whom 23 are located in Conakry.
We had realised that there were gaps in the workers’ interventions. To make up the gaps, training sessions on a regular basis enabled us to define better the tasks and responsibilities of these future youth workers. The target is to look after the respect for the rights of the imprisoned minors and to contribute to their social reintegration. As well, this course permitted us to spot potential trainers who will be able to ensure the training of new youth workers within the prison administration.
You took part in this training course. What stayed with you?
I learned about listening techniques, but more importantly, the attitude to adopt towards the young people. One must have a non-judgemental attitude towards children. For example, if I am faced with a youngster who has committed a crime, I could have a feeling of revulsion. It is therefore important to accept prejudices and get over them, before being able to disassociate the youngster from the bad thing he has done. This training course has been very useful to me for having talks with minors in detention.
The other advantage of the course is that I was able to meet youth workers who I will be sent to work with in the penal institution.
What are the challenges still to be taken up?
This is the first time that the youth workers are confronted with the daily tasks. One of my responsibilities will be to convince them to come to work regularly, not only three times a week. Regular attendance is required at the work-place so as to be able to check that they are doing their job well. However, such professional diligence has not yet become a custom.
To oblige them to come to work, I decided to organise regular meetings twice a week, so they could apply correctly what they had learned during the course. Like this, they take their work even more seriously.
And a last word?
I hope we will be able to work all together to support the minors in prison, to fight for their rights and to make sure that there will be fewer young Guineans in prison. With courage, perseverance and insight, we’ll get there one day.
