Field Report from Unstoppable Foundation Founder Cynthia Kersey...

I recently had the opportunity to visit our in-country partner in Liberia, Kimmie Weeks and his staff at Youth Action International and what an experience! I was traveling with Humanity Unites Brilliance (HUB) leaders including Spryte Loriano, Charlie Gay and 4 other HUB members to visit the schools that we supported and to see how else we might help.

Visiting Liberia was an emotional and exhilarating journey. Until the 2005 election of Ellen Sirleaf—the first female head of state in Africa—Liberia was engaged in a civil war for 14 years.

During the civil war, children as young as age 5, were kidnapped, brainwashed and trained to become soldiers for the rebel army. Because they were brainwashed, these children became capable of unspeakable atrocities. Isaac, who works with our in-country partner Youth Action International, explained, “You would hope you didn’t get pulled over by a child soldier, they were the most brutal.”

Child soldiers were known for making young boys have intercourse with their mothers. They would write down body parts and draw them from a hat and that’s what they would cut off. It was heartbreaking and draining to be in a country full of victims and perpetrators, knowing that no one is unscarred. But it was also energizing to see how, in a place that has experienced the most heinous atrocities, Liberia has come to terms with its recent history, forgiven the past and moves forward every day.

When we landed in Monrovia, Liberia we had the opportunity to meet with President Sirleaf and Kimmie Weeks, a 27 year old human rights activist who is very well-respected in the community. While there, CNN was doing a story on President Sirleaf and Kimmie about the work they are doing to re-build their country. This gave us the added opportunity to learn a lot more about both of these courageous and tireless servants.

President Sirleaf and Cynthia Kersey address Women's Empowerment Center Workshop 2009 in Liberia

We attended the first graduation ceremony of the Women’s Empowerment Center with the President of Liberia, Ellen Sirleaf. Kimmie founded the Women’s Empowerment Center in 2008. The center is a vocational school for women and girls teaching them numerous trades and skills that will help them earn an income including: hair-braiding, interior decorating, jewelry making, fashion design, seamstress work, and marketing their handmade products.

While we were there, I led an Unstoppable Women Workshop with the graduates. It was amazing to see how their vocational training really empowered them. Considering everything they’ve gone through, they were still very optimistic about their future and they were proud of themselves. President Sirleaf came to see the women, give the graduates gifts, and congratulate them personally.

We all talked about what it means to be unstoppable. We talked about their dreams. We talked about what they see as the things that could potentially stop them from achieving their dreams. What was so amazing is that, in spite of the truly harrowing experiences they endured, the single thing they all said might stop them from achieving the goals was the same thing that women at my Unstoppable Workshops in the United States have said: Fear.

After the graduation, Kimmie took us to see the refugee camp where Kimmie, his family, and a million others were kept in an area about 1 square mile. We heard about both the horrors he witnessed and the courage and strength he learned in that refugee camp.

While there, we also visited Becky Primary school, the school we built in conjunction with Kimmie’s organization Youth In Action. The school takes care of 600 students in the Kakata community in Margibi County. This is the largest school project generated by Youth Action International.

Originally co-funded by British Music Sensation M.I.A. in 2006, the school provided education to the Kakata that was previously inaccessible. Becky Primary School was also one of the first to implement the Mother Goose Time curriculum for pre-school aged children, starting local children in Kakata on the path to education at a very young age. However, without continued support, the Becky Primary school cannot stay open to all the youth in the community.

 

UNSTOPPABLE DONORS KEEP SCHOOL OPEN!

Thanks to the generous support of individual donors to the Unstoppable Foundation, we have provided the necessary resources to allow the children of Kakata to continue their education.

Along with the basic necessities of books, pens and paper, the students will soon receive a new library, a computer center and a fully equipped playground. Construction is almost finished.

At Becky, we met with some of the teachers and the school’s principal. They took us on a walk through their modest community—we saw how long a walk some of these students take to get to school. Even though school wasn’t in session, lots of kids came to greet us and thank us for our support. The entire community was so grateful for the investment we’ve made in their children and their community.

After visiting Becky Primary School, we went to visit Elwou Orphanage—the other educational facility in Liberia that the Unstoppable Foundation supports. The Elwuo Orphanage takes care and educates 95 orphans in Monrovia, Liberia. Here the orphans have deplorable living conditions. There is no glass on their windows, their hole-ridden roof is in danger of collapse, and damaged pipes obstruct their only means of safe drinking water. In their school, which consists of one room, one bench, and one chalk board, the students must grapple for limited resources. Although they have six dedicated teachers, these teachers work for the meager salary of only $48 annually, and do not have the necessary supplies to serve their overcrowded classrooms.

Along with Youth Action International, our help will give these orphans—and other students in the surrounding city—access to better facilities, more nutritional food, clean drinking water and a fully funded school with adequate resources to support both the students and the teachers. They’ve broken ground on the new school and construction is in progress. The latrine is already in place and the rest of the plumbing should be finished shortly.

At Elwuo we met Evelyn, a teacher at the school who was once an orphan herself. She told us how she felt called to this work and drawn to these children who have no one because growing up she also had no one. With tears in her eyes, she told her story as she stood in front of the brand new latrine—what was once just a hole with some tinfoil around it is now the first nice toilet most of the kids have ever seen. Even in something so small she sees progress and we are a part of that. But the Elwuo Orphanage still needs a lot of work.

Donations made to the Elwuo Orphanage give the children more than just a solid roof and windows, they give the children hope.

I left inspired by the leadership of Kimmie and his staff at Youth Action International. Liberia is still not the safest place in the world to be, yet they’re using their talents to really make a difference in their country, and their country really needs change. Like me and the rest of us at the Unstoppable Foundation, they believe that education for the children and empowerment for the women is the key to turning their country around. They are currently expanding the Women’s Empowerment Center as well as building a second one.

This year 95 women graduated, next year 300 will. Graduating from these Women’s Empowerment Centers translates to immediate income. Within a year these graduates will have real earning power which is important for rebuilding. But they need our help building schools and that’s where you come in.

Donate now and help us turn the country of child soldiers into a country of students.