Tahanan ng Kabataan and Boys Town

The name Tahanan Ng Kabataan means "House of Youth" but it is often simply refered to as Tahanan Boys Jail.

Run by the local authorities, Tahanan comprises a fenced and barbed wire gated compound with a very basic accomodation block where anything up to 80 boys ranging from about 8 to 17 years sleep either on the concrete floors or crammed into some bare wooden bunks in two cells, divided according to their ages. The boys receive 3 meals a day, mainly comprising rice and a few vegetables that they grow in the yard.

Some of the boys have committed criminal offences ranging literally from petty theft to murder but others have just been brought here for "their own safety" because they have no family or have been sleeping rough in the city. A handfull of elderly people with mild dementia also live in crude wooden shacks in one corner of the compound.

The ministry to the residents at Tahanan is really an extension of Lifenet Children's Foundation's work with Street Children  because many of the children living on the streets end up here at some point., often for breach of curfew laws.

"Boys Town" is a hostel for boys from age 7 to 17 who have nowhere else to live. Whilst they are free to come and go, and are not locked in as they would be at Tahanan, the facilities are quite poor and the buildings delapidated. There is little money for improvements, or even to provide proper medical care for the children who live there.

We are pleased to have been able to support this work financially. Some of our volunteers have been able to visit both of these centres to see the work first hand and occasionally to assist with drama sketches, teaching sessions and talks with the boys and providing some basic medical care, dressing cuts and infected mosquito bites.

Update September 2011 Formerly located in very derelict city centre premisesTahanan Ng Kabataan has now relocated to a new purpose built property on the edge of the city. Living conditions are now much improved but our partners Lifenet Children's Foundation still visit to support the children held there.