A Hampshire man created a project to rescue children from the streets of Sierra Leone after he felt God calling him.

Philip Dean, from St Barnabas' Church, Swanmore

Philip Dean, 43, from St Barnabas’ Church, Swanmore, had no experience of working with children and was only in the country on a two-week visit. But the project he set up has helped more than 100 children who were made homeless after the country’s brutal civil war.

The project he started – the St George’s Foundation – plucked children aged 11 to 15 from street gangs and often from prostitution, fed them, taught them and told them about God. They concentrated on rebuilding the children’s self esteem, self discipline and reintegration back into normal society, using sports, drama, dance and education.

Then they sent the children back to mainstream schools, some for the first time, and reunited them with their families. In less than two years, the project has turned Philip’s own life and faith upside down. He now hopes to build a permanent centre near Freetown for street children.

“I’d followed the civil war in Sierra Leone, and the gratuitous violence horrified me,” he said. “I thought it was the last place on the planet I’d like to be. But I was on the Hampshire support team for a charity called Hope and Homes For Children and was invited out to see their centre for orphans in Bo.

“When I visited in February 2004, the war had just ended and there were troops everywhere. And there were 11-12 year old kids constantly begging – there were 3,000 homeless street kids in Freetown alone. I felt uncomfortable to see children in the orphanage that we were visiting living in wonderful conditions, and yet so many who had nothing just beyond the gates. I had an intense feeling of God calling me to do something, but I wondered whether he had called the wrong person.

“I thought we should target the 12-13 year olds as the older teenagers are already into drugs and gangs. I decided that I could afford to help 30 of them for six hours a day with two meals, activities, education, worship and games, so that’s what we did.”

He enlisted Justina Conteh, from the charity Help a Needy Child International, and a photographer, John Dalton, who started by befriending children on the streets at night. It was dangerous work as older boys resented them taking younger boys from their gangs and the men controlling the girls had to be handled very carefully.

Then, on 3 May 2004, they started giving food to the children they had befriended in the grounds of an orphanage.

“The children were violent, abusive and foul-mouthed because they’d been living on the streets,” said Philip. “We had them between 12noon and 6pm, and it would take those six hours to calm them down so they behaved reasonably. But then they would go back on the streets overnight, and they would be just as wild the next morning.”

They realised they needed to make the project residential to make a difference. Eventually, they found a seven-bedroomed bungalow in a rundown part of Freetown.

“It was a massive leap of faith to pay for a year’s rent on this bungalow,” said Philip. “It was about £2,500, but it wasn’t the amount of money so much as the commitment to the project. I dilly-dallied for three weeks, and then said ‘Let’s go for it’. It was a big moment and there was no going back.”

That step was also a turning point for the project. On 5 August 2004, the St George’s Foundation project became residential, with 56 boys, 12 girls and 12 staff members living in one house. The children had a daily timetable of three meals a day, worship, teaching and activities such as dance, drama and music. And the staff were paid for the first time.

“By the end of August, the kids had changed dramatically,” said Philip. “The violence had often been because they were competing for food, but here they were assured of food and shelter. At the start of the month, we thought there might be 12 who could go to school. By September, we had a list of 35! We bought them school uniforms, paid their school fees and sent all 35 to four different schools.

“It was a massive leap of faith that they wouldn’t let us down. In fact, they were so proud of themselves in the uniforms that they marched off to school in a parade and the neighbours cheered and clapped them off. And we’ve never had any discipline problems with them in school.

“We could then tell the other children that if they behaved, they could also go to school in November, which was a real incentive. They did, so by the end of the year, these formerly uncontrollable street kids were all at school. The atmosphere was like a big family and the children called each other brother and sister.

“The next thing was to trace their families. They told us where they had come from, and in many cases there was a surviving parent. For them to settle back in with a parent or relative was actually quite traumatic - they were often going from our house to just a mud hut or a wooden shed, and from three meals a day to perhaps one bowl of gruel a day.

“The first eight weeks of these re-unifications were crucial. We waited until the end of the school year – August – and then placed 45 of the children with relatives. Another 12 have gone back since then. We’ve then visited them once or twice a week, because it would have been very easy for these vulnerable children to have felt abandoned by us. In fact, every single child has stayed with their families.”

The project then selected another 40 street children, this time a younger group, who moved into the house in August 2005 and were sent to school for the first time last September.

The project now plans to open a second centre for street children, and wants to build a new centre five miles outside Freetown. Christian builders Mission Direct have offered to build it, but the charities need £100,000 between them to make it possible.

The project has been supported by regular donations from individuals in the UK and through Philip’s printing and embroidery business, targeting university students’ insatiable desire for embroidered sweatshirts and polo shirts. The project has also become part of Jacob’s Well, a larger charity.

Now Philip is bringing two of the original street children, Sadiatu and Abdulia, to Britain during March and April. They will meet some of the church and student groups that have supported the project. Any group that would like the pair to visit them in this time, or who would like to know more about how to support the project should contact Philip on 01489-894133 or philip.dean@btconnect.com. There’s also more information on www.adecentlife.org and www.missiondirect.org.

“I’m sure I’m not the only person who sits watching things on TV and wishes they could do something,” he said. “All I’ve clung onto is that this is just a small thank you to God for all that he’s given to us. My reliance on him has become total, because so many times we’ve prayed for things and an answer has come.”