YRP - Youth Rehabilitation Program
Youth Rehabilitation Program
The YRP (Youth Rehabilitation Program) is a transit home which offers a second chance to adolescents living on the streets through temporary shelter, informal education, occupational therapy, skill-trainings and job-placement.
The program has been initiated in August 2004 by Wim De Becker and Dinesh Bhandari. The maximum capacity of the project is 28 beneficiaries at a time, all between 15 and 20 years old, and guided by 4 care givers / social workers.
This program has two parts: on the one hand the socialization part through informal education (especially literacy classes) and occupational therapy in our pottery under the guidance of a professional potter, and on the other hand the reintegration part through skill-trainings and job-placements.
We collaborate with several institutes that offer a wide range of skill-trainings: plumbing, car-mechanic, carpentry, house-wiring, masonry, cooking, ... with durations between 6 months and 2 years. The boys go to their training-institutes from the YRP Home on a daily base.
As long as they are following their program they can live in the transit home. After finalizing their program we try to find them a job with an income in collaboration with the training-institute, so that they can become independent and make room for the next batch.
Pottery Program
Paul Van Gompel from the association “Potters without Borders” started up a pottery workshop In Gokarna, which he handed over to Shangrila Home in 2000. It accommodates for adolescent street boys to give them a chance to get socialized and to provide them with occupational therapy (ceramics) and informal education such as literacy in both scripts (Nepali and Roman) and some general subjects.
After finalizing the program they can transfer to the YRP to start following a skill-training and reintegrate into society through job-placement. Since 2014 this program is incorporated in the YRP-project and is located in the same building.