Youth Action International-Liberia
2nd Floor, Fofana Bldg.
Benson Street
Monrovia, Liberia
Email: martina@peaceforkids.org
Telephone: 011-231 6 811-222
In 2009, YAI-Liberia will expand sub-offices and operations to rural areas to help families break out of poverty with more scholarships, women empowerment and youth resource centers as well as new programs such as public libraries, and transit homes for boys and girls. YAI-Liberia will develop advocacy campaigns for child rights and against sexual exploitation along with social reintegration programs for war-affected youth. YAI-Liberia will offer more microloans and create sustainable agricultural training programs. YAI-Liberia will accomplish these goals with the help of increased volunteerism both nationally and internationally.
LIBERIA CORE STAFF>>>
2009 Programs
YAI Early Childhood Development Program
Mother Goose Time
Pre-school education is a critical foundation of childhood development.Youth Action International’s first large-scale educational initiative, Mother GooseTime is a professionally crafted preschool curriculum that offers teaching kits withthemed activities, arts and crafts and lesson plan ideas to pre-school classrooms. The kits provide tools for creative exploration, hands-on development and artistic expression, which enhance early childhood learning and development. With the success of the one-year pilot program, YAI hopes to work with the Liberian Ministryof Education to expand the Mother Goose Time curriculum to pre-schools nationwide.
Project School Library
A government-run public school, the Project School struggles to educate1,600 students from the Gardnersville projects with little resources. Youth ActionInternational donated over 700 textbooks, reference books and literature texts tothe school for the start of the 2008-2009 academic year. Nevertheless, the ProjectSchool resources remain scarce. YAI has pledged to construct and furnish the Project School’s first library and provide Gardnersville with its first public school library. The Project School Library will serve over 2,000 students in the Gardnersville community.
Becky Primary School
Renovation of the Becky Primary School was co-funded by British musicsensation, M.I.A in 2006. In its first year, the new school opened to 600 children inthe Kakata community and was one of the first recipients of the pilot Mother GooseTime curriculum for pre-school-aged children. With few schools available in Kakata, interest in the Becky School is astronomical and the already overpopulated schoolhopes to be able to provide for each of its eager students. YAI’s aim for next year isto maintain and continue furnishing of the Becky School, while providing it withbooks, supplies, and a fully equipped playground. YAI’s aim is to ensure that theBecky School remains accessible to as many of Kakata’s children as possible.
T-mas Orphanage
This year, YAI completed the construction of the first of two orphanages, the TEMAS Orphanage in Clay-Monrovia. The construction created dormitory roomswith 30 bunk beds for 66 children and fully equipped with electricity, clean waterand security. While the new building has helped to improve conditions for thechildren considerably, they still face immeasurable challenges. Before theconstruction of the TEMAS orphanage, they worried about school fees, clothing, andfood. They lacked adequate nutrition and healthcare. The orphans at TEMAS walked2 miles to and from school each day during the school year and found it difficult toconcentrate on their lessons. While the improved nutrition provided by YAIsponsoredfood has boosted the children’s energy levels, the painstaking walk toschool remains a challenge. As a solution, YAI plans to build a three-classroomaddition to the orphanage where students can learn without facing the 4-mileobstacle each day. By these means, the younger children will be spared the gruelinghike from the orphanage to school. Their energy levels will increase and allow formore creativity, focus and enthusiasm in the classroom. It is YAI’s hope that schoolwill become a passion for these children, not a chore.
Elwuo Orphanage
The Elwuo Orphanage cares for and educates over 95 children daily. Lack ofadequate space at Elwuo makes living conditions for the orphans deplorable.Damaged pipes obstruct the only means of safe drinking water. Six dedicatedindividuals teach at the understaffed Elwuo School with limited resources for asmall annual salary of $48. Over 95 students grapple for attention from their teachers, and share desks, school supplies, and food everyday. The pressures of theoverpopulated space are daunting. YAI’s renovation project hopes to be the Elwuoorphanage’s saving grace. More spacious rooms, better facilities, higher nutrition,clean drinking water and increased resources for school. The lives of each of theseorphans and impoverished children will undoubtedly change for the better.
JCN Howard Playground
The JCN Howard playground in Monrovia’s Paynesville community caters toover 50 children everyday. The space is a comfort to nearby market women andsellers who can calmly watch their children play instead of worrying about leavingthem unsupervised and vulnerable to the unknown dangers facing them in thestreets. The slides and jungle gyms provide exciting play to young children whilethe basketball courts and makeshift soccer field offer teenagers and young adults analternative to street-life. After its renovation in 2007, the playground transformedthe neighborhood into a place of positive energy and worry-free play. Unfortunately, lack of funding for adequate fencing and maintenance leaves theplayground open to scrap metal thieves and gang members at night. Playgroundequipment are often cut and stolen, threatening to make the space into theunattractive and increasingly dangerous place it once was. YAI proposes toproperly fence and maintain the facilities of the playground while promotingnonviolence through community activities and programs.
YAI Youth Development/ Empowerment Programs
YAI’s first vocational training center in Liberia, the Women’s Empowerment Center opens its doors in November 2008. The center offers free vocational training in tailoring, interior decorating, baking, candle and grease making, bead and jewelry making and cosmetology. Additionally, the center offers computer literacy courses for all interested women. The center aims to serve 150 women each year with skills training, career counseling and group microloans with which to start independent businesses.
New Kru Town Women’s Center
YAI recognizes that the issue of ineffective business management is a critic alone, which is proving detrimental to the success of many small businesses in Liberia. As such, YAI proposes to implement a new business management and vocational training women’s center in the impoverished area of New Kru Town. Serving fifty women over the period of one year, the center will offer a sewing and tailoring course for young women along with microloans with which to start their own small businesses. Students will learn how to incorporate basic sewing skills in developing more specialized practices such as quilt-making, interior design and upholstering. With heavy emphasis placed on business management concepts, YAI hopes to help empower women in New Kru Town to independently manage successful and sustainable businesses.
ENABLED Project
Through Youth Action International’s mission to aid families affected by war, YAI embarked on an initiative to uplift Liberians physically affected by war. The YAI ENABLED project helps handicapped individuals in Monrovia by teaching basic,self-sustainable trade skills such as tailoring and crafting. The project aims to train up to 200 disabled war survivors and survivors of polio.
Former Child Soldiers Reintegration Health Project
The YAI-IDEFOCS Health Awareness project holds two principal purposes:
- To spread awareness on health issues affecting Monrovia’s community members and as well as knowledge on how to prevent related health complications and prolong life
- To sew seeds of reconciliation between the former child soldier(FCS) population and larger society.
Former child soldiers will work collaboratively with local civilian youth in implementing health awareness campaigns as a means of giving back to the society. Working with members of the local Initiative for the Development of Former Child Soldiers (IDEFOCS), YAI will conduct public campaigns on the prevention of HIV/AIDS, malaria and early child mortality.
FCS Agricultural project for Global Peace
As an organization that believes in the power of youth helping youth, the shared obligation of aiding in former child soldier reintegration rests on YAI. While 11,840 former child soldiers received post-war reintegration programming, thousands of former child soldiers were never reached. In response, YAI proposes to assist former child soldiers in their efforts to reintegrate by sponsoring a three part agricultural training program for former child soldiers, which will comprise of agricultural sustainability workshops, farming, and microloans for a small restaurant and produce business. Set on 150 acres of fertile, undulating land, the agricultural program will enable 250 former child soldiers to learn rice, tuber crop and vegetable-farming skills. Over the course of one year, YAI hopes to transform the land into the community of Weala’s first former child soldier co-operative.
FCS Survey & Video Diary Project
YAI, in collaboration with local NGO, Initiative for the Development of Former Child Soldiers, has constructed a survey project to gather the stories and experiences of former child soldiers during and after Liberia’s fourteen-year civil war. The survey project will consist of personal door-to-door interactions with former child combatants in their local communities, as well as community meetings strategically planned to create safe spaces and openness. Experiences will be documented through survey forms and, for willing participants, video diaries. The information collected will be used to guide YAI in tailoring effective reintegration projects to target the needs of former child soldiers and ensuring the continued peace and security of Liberia’s youth.
Grand Bassa Computer Training Center
The Grand Bassa Computer Training Center aims to provide computer literacy programs and accessibility to computer facilities to the city of Buchanan in Grand Bassa. With very little access to such facilities, local community members reached out to YAI to appeal for the center that they believe will provide the medication and increased marketability to find employment. The hopes of people in Grand Bassa are high but not unrealistically so. YAI believes in the potential of marginalized groups to collectively transcend the barriers of poverty. Through high impact projects like the Grand Bassa Computer Training Center, YAI hopes to help the people of Buchanan uplift themselves from extreme poverty.
YAI Monrovia Youth Resource Center
Computer illiteracy and poor access to educational facilities are obstacles facing Liberia’s youth in the path towards development. In all of YAI’s assessment visits to various Liberian communities, youth frequently express the need for a resource center with computer facilities, textbooks and reference guides. In response, the YAI Youth Resource Center was conceived. The center will provide as pace for computer literacy training, a small library for studies as well as a space for youth groups to congregate and organize community service events.
Learn More About LIBERIA
- Population: 3 million
- Population under 14: 43%
- Unemployment rate: 85%
- Population below poverty line: 80%
- More than half of Liberia’s population lives on less than 30 cents a day
Country Profile
I’ve been thinking about what to write since I came back from Liberia. I am from Spain and English is my fourth language – I also speak Spanish, Italian, and Catalan. So as you can imagine, it took me forever to put all my thoughts in order in English.
“What have I gotten myself into?”
