[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 120 (Wednesday, September 29, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1734]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    HONORING FATHER JAVIER DE NICOLO

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MICHAEL M. HONDA

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 28, 2004

  Mr. HONDA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on my behalf and on behalf of 
Mr. Lane Evans, Mr. Sam Farr, Mr. Raul M. Grijalva, Ms. Sheila Jackson-
Lee, Mr. Gerald Kleczka, Ms. Barbara Lee, Mr. James P. McGovern, Mr. 
Gregory Meeks, and Mr. Pete Stark to honor the extraordinary 
contributions of Father Javier de Nicolo, a champion for the 
impoverished and forgotten children of Colombia. The methodology that 
he developed and instituted through the Bosconia Program, a child 
services program for children who live in the street without parents, 
serves as a model throughout the world.
  Father Javier de Nicolo was born in Bari, Italy on April 29, 1928. At 
18, shortly after the end of World War II, he decided to join the 
Salesian Community in Naples, which has a strong record for its work 
with the poor. In 1948, he emigrated to Agua de Dios in Colombia to 
treat patients with Hansen's disease. In the late 1960s, Father de 
Nicolo served as the chaplain of the Carcel de Menores, a prison in 
Bogota for minors.
  There, Father de Nicolo learned that children entering Bogota's 
prisons were beaten, robbed, and raped. This experience hardened them, 
making it difficult to reintroduce them into society. Father de Nicolo 
recognized the need to provide structure and guidance in the lives of 
abandoned children who roamed the street--before they found themselves 
in prison. In 1970, with 20 children released from the Carcel de 
Menores on his personal recognizance, he organized Bosconia, a small, 
experimental learning community in the slums of Bogota. Over time, 
Javier witnessed the transformation of hundreds of irresolute boys into 
confident and independent young adults through participation in his 
program.
  In Bogota, there are several thousand boys from ages 5 to 15 who live 
in anarchy. Death is a looming reality for Bogota's street children. 
For many years, Colombia has experienced the highest child murder rate 
in the world. Vigilante groups engage in driveby shootings or ``social 
cleansing'' as they label it, which lead to the massacre of hundreds of 
children each year. Nearly all street children carry knives, which they 
use for protection and to intimidate others. Inevitably, some children 
kill each other in a scuffle that turns deadly. Dozens of children kill 
themselves by smoking highly addictive cocaine which can lead to 
paralysis. Child prostitutes contract AIDS and spread the disease.
  What began as an experiment in the early 1970s has grown into an 
organization whose branches reach thousands of children in Bogota, 
Cali, Medellin, and Buenaventura. The Bosconia Program is a mixture of 
vocational training and a boarding program designed to help the 
children ease themselves off the streets into a more traditional 
lifestyle. With only a handful of adult supervisors, it graduates a 
growing number of young adults into the workforce on a tight budget. 
Bosconia operates on the philosophy that the wit and spunk a child uses 
to survive in the street reflects an intelligence that the 
program's educators can redirect. In fact, the Bosconia Program has 
been replicated by many organizations in numerous countries. Nearly 
20,000 youngsters from the street have been rescued by the Bosconia 
Program, saved from indifference and generalized violence, becoming 
elevated as individuals and members of society.

  Programming at Bosconia strengthens the character of children who 
once lived in the streets of Colombia and provides them with the 
resources that they need to become active participants in society. 
Attracted to the promise of a better life, boys voluntarily enter the 
courtyard of Bosconia. The mark of those anarchic days of stealing, 
starving half-freezing, fear and bravado passes from their faces. They 
have learned to respect themselves because Father Javier de Nicolo, his 
associates, and the other boys had respected them.
  Although graduates of Bosconia have the character and the will to 
engage in the Colombian workforce, the unemployment rate is steadily 
rising. Decades of violence that include murder, robbery, and 
kidnappings that has ravaged the countryside have brought millions of 
rural people into the country's cities. Those that graduate from 
Bosconia will need more than spiritual transformation if they hope to 
compete for jobs that will allow them to live with dignity. This cold 
reality has encouraged Javier de Nicolo to seek private funds to 
establish a program that will allow his pupils to receive on-the-job 
training, earn and save money, and gain experience in managing small 
enterprises.
  Many social scientists believe that personalities rarely change after 
children reach their teenage years. To the contrary, Javier de Nicolo 
has taught us that the odds can be beaten and that we should never 
forfeit our children--our future--to the vices that plague our streets. 
We should nurture them, inspire them, and invigorate their minds with 
the dream of living healthy and fulfilling lives. The world can use 
more people with the compassion and motivation of Father Javier de 
Nicolo. The children of Colombia are truly blessed to have him as their 
guardian. We thank him for his work, his resolve to make a better life 
for destitute children, and we learn from the wisdom of his successful 
model, seeking opportunities to replicate this success globally.
  By dedicating over three decades to rescuing and integrating lost 
children into society, Father de Nicolo inspires a call for global 
solidarity and responsibility--one that reaches beyond the geographic 
bounds of Colombia. He has developed a process to guide personal and 
social renovation, giving life to children who are waiting for an 
opportunity to rejoin their families and communities as well as 
exercise their citizenship without discrimination. We applaud this 
leader who is a tireless advocate for the human rights of all our 
world's children.

                          ____________________