originally from Paynesville city, the republic of Liberia,a small country on the west coast of Africa,I now live in Minneapolis, Minnesota the United states of America. Ever Mindful of the many negative information about my country due largely in part to the almost two decades of civil war, i have created this blog as a means to share with all well meaning people and friends of Liberia, the many positive aspect of my country. I am a Liberian first, and a patriot,I love my country, and i will always be proud of where i came from. duty to my country is paramount in everything i do, therefore only 3 things governs what i do, my God, Country, and family first,every other thing is secondary.
Hello,
I’ve noticed your blog and thought you and your readers might be interested in a recently published book from The Crumpled Press, a small press that makes beautiful books by hand.
Take a Right at the Tank & Other Ways to Get Home
An Illustrated Photo-Journal of Liberia
by J. Nealin Parker
A candid, moving account of the excitement, contradictions, and promise of promoting democracy in post-war Liberia. Beautifully bound and illustrated with original drawings and color plates, the text includes a preface by Ambassador Jacques Paul Klein, former Special Representative of the Secretary General and Coordinator of UN Operations in Liberia.
Publication info:
A second edition of 200
Date: July 2007
ISBN: 978-0-9796969-0-9
Binding: Hand-sewn and perfect bound, color jacket
Papers: Fabriano Murillo 360 gram cover, Mohawk Superfine 80 lb. text, India Batik Solid (endpapers)
Size: 5.25″ x 7.25″
Pages: 63 (plus 7 color photographic plates)
For more information or to order a copy, please visit:
http://www.crumpledpress.org/publications/takearight.html
Great journal! Just added you to our web-link. Would you be interested in cross-blogging?
Can you help us? I along with several other concerned people in my community are fighting the legal system here in Fairview, Oklahoma to try and get 4 sisters from Liberia out of a home where they are being treated as property. The adoptive family’s adult son has admitted to raping one of the girls, they are tied to posts, hit with whatever is at hand, and regularly deprived of food. One of the sisters was given away to a very kind couple who would like the other 4 to join their home. The Department of Human Services claims that since the one child is no longer in the home the problem has been dealt with. The family claims that the abuse only happened to the one sister and not any of the others. The DHS and the judge are buying this story, but we are not. The sister who is not in the home claims that the abuse also happens to the others. Please help!!
i would love to how do i contact you?
Emmanuel
Its a pleasure to be writing this to you. I hope you’re alive and still manage this blog. I have been contacted by lady who said she’s your daugter saying you have passed on and she is in a refuge camp in Dakar and needs my help.
Sisanda, I just receive a mail by lady who said the same story, now I know it’s a scamp
HarperCollins is thrilled to introduce THIS CHILD WILL BE GREAT, the memoir of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the current Liberian President and Africa’s first elected woman president.
In this memoir, President Sirleaf shares the inside story of her rise to power, from her early childhood; to her experiences with domestic abuse, imprisonment, and exile; to her fight for democracy and social justice. President Sirleaf’s story is one of surviving and thriving in multiple worlds—from her work, travel, and study abroad to her door-to-door election campaign in some of Liberia’s poorest neighborhoods. It is also the story of an outspoken political and social reformist who, despite the dangers, fought against the abuses of forceful, uncompromising dictators to champion change. Her journey from political reformer, to prisoner, to president has proved that true revolution comes not by bloody coup, but by ballot box and political process.
Here is what others are saying about THIS CHILD WILL BE GREAT:
“Sirleaf’s life was remarkable. . . . [A] larger-than-life persona. . . . Sirleaf, who is considered the Obama of Africa, is up to the challenge. . . . With three years left in her presidential term, Sirleaf will have plenty of fodder for a sequel by the time she’s out of office.”
— Forbes
“The first thing to be said about Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s THIS CHILD WILL BE GREAT is that it is exceptionally well written, a true story that seems as much a thriller as the remembrances of an ambitious and brave woman. . . . Johnson Sirleaf is candid and clear-eyed in apportioning blame for her country’s collapse, and there is plenty of blame to go around. . . . This timely book, essential for anyone who hopes to understand West Africa in general and Liberia in particular, is a lesson in courage and perseverance. I finished it hoping that the rest of Africa’s troubled nations will find their own versions of ‘Mama Sirleaf.’ ”
— Washington Post
Please contact us if you are interested in receiving a review copy of THIS CHILD WILL BE GREAT by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Thank you,
Julie Daurio
HarperCollinsPublishers
Very cool site. Zoeza Institute helps at-risk foster youth transition to indepent living through long term mentoring. We are in Philly but plan to expand with funding. One of our mentees is from Liberia. Grace is president of the national honor society. She was young when she left Liberia. How do you say thank you in one of the local dialects? I plan to use it in our fundraising letter. thanks!
Phil Cuffey
Executive Director
Zoeza Institute
Dear owner of web page –
My name is Walter Chon and I am a dramaturg, currently working on a play called ECLIPSED by Danai Gurira at the Yale Repertory Theatre.
The plays takes place in Liberia for a couple of months leading up to Charles Taylor’s resignation in August 2003.
It opens at the Yale Rep on the 23rd of October and runs for three weeks.
I thank you for your wonderful web page. It has been tremendous help for my research, especially as I have been introduced to Liberia and its culture working on this production.
I am contacting you to ask a question about an illustration on your webpage, the one with the women, including Susanna Waring-Lewis, sewing the Liberian flag. I was wondering if you could let me know the artist of the illustration. I was fascinated by that illustration and I would like to check more of that artist’s work.
I would truly appreciate your help.
Sincerely,
Walter Chon
Dramaturg
Yale Repertory Theatre
hey walter i am sorry but i do not know the artist of that paintaing, but check this site i am sure u will find it helpful
http://www.liberiaseabreeze.com/
please let me know if i can be of any help…..
hi, my knowlege from liberia is too poor , and i received a helping mail froma person from lliberia .
this person exist in the reality? is name is jumbo emmanuel,
what apened to im in liberia, is alive?and he have family?
if possible can you reply my mail.
thanks.
great blog man thanks
Have you ever thought of adding more videos to your page to keep the viewers more hooked? I just read through the whole post and it was quite good but since I am more of a visual learner, I find videos to be very helpful. I dig what you guys are always coming up with. Keep up the excellent work. I will visit your page regularly for some new post.
Since serving as a Peace Corps teacher(1964-1966) in Bolahun (Lofa County about eight miles from Kolahun), when the Holy Cross Mission was located there, I have followed events in Liberia with great interest.
When Samuel Doe brought in a Bolahun native Harry Moniba, whom I last saw in 1965, to be vice president, I hoped things would settle down. Then things blew up and I lost friends there.
Recently I was reunited with several former students, who were educated in Bolahun. To my joy, they have resurrected the schools there at Bolahun.
They graduated their first senior class in a school that is now twice the size as it was in the 1960′s.
The website http://bowilliehawa.com under My Album shows Bolahun has survived the war. The pictures there took me back over forty years.
Sites such as this one show that so many Liberians are jumping in to rebuild.
Now I know America is a nice place to live. Liberians are welcome.
But for Liberians it is not home.
Hi,emmunel jumbo,please i just want to know whether if you are stil alive,because i received a mail from someone i dont know claiming that she is your daughter,with the name suzzy jumbo,is that really your daughter or not?
Peter
The same lady contacted me asking for help now i also do not know how far true this is if the same person she said is dead is here talking to people
I got e mail from You’r daughter please is it a wind up or is she your daughter
We have been airing our 13 min radio program on Worship fm 101.7 it has brought great hope to your people we air all over the world as a christian inspiration format, now as the host want to really hear the needs of the area so we can be more effective please advise on how we may do this.
My name is Anita Wills, and I am the author of a book, Pieces of the Quilt: The Mosaic of An African American Family. This is my second book, and is a Chronicle of my family history. One of my ancestors is Elijah Johnson, who was one of the Architects of Monrovia Liberia. I have been in contact with Johnson descendants throughout America, and learned a lot of what happened after he arrived in that country. He traveled to Liberia in 1820, on a ship with about 80 other Free Blacks and some whites. His daughter and son from his first marriage did not travel with him. His daughter Sarah Johnson-Martin is my direct ancestor. The Liberians I have been in contact with are very proud and well educated. They have a clear sense of history and pride in Liberia. It is a country that is thousands of years old of course it has had ups and downs.
Thank you for this wonderful site, I will visit it often.
Hello Lord Emmanuel! I have been contacted by a supposed that your daughter is in a refugee camp in Dakar. Was to seek the truth I found your blog. Please wish me to confirm this. I think someone is using your name to swindle.
Graciously
George Soros supports World ORT project for Liberia’s ex-child soldiers
A few “dirty stones” given to supermodel Naomi Campbell made headlines around the world when they formed part of her testimony in former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor’s war crimes trial at The Hague.
But no such attention is paid to the tens of thousands of young Liberians who are locked in an unglamorous struggle to overcome the horror of a youth spent fighting two savage civil wars which raged between 1989 and 2003.
As children they were forced into military service where they saw, and often did, unspeakable things. Now that the West African country is enjoying relative peace and democracy under the continent’s first female head of state, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, these former combatants are trying to get the education they were denied in the hope of building a normal, decent life.
Thanks to a very generous $1 million grant by billionaire philanthropist George Soros’s Open Society Institute (OSI), World ORT’s International Cooperation Department (ORT IC), which has been implementing non-sectarian aid programmes in developing countries for 50 years, is there to help them.
ORT IC’s Liberian Youth Training and Employment project will directly help 1,000 people – young people who simply missed out on school because of the wars as well as ex-combatants – in six rural districts gain vital practical skills through an apprenticeship scheme. But the project stands to benefit countless more people by helping to improve training and employability throughout the whole country.
“We’re working on a micro-level but the overall goal is to develop a national framework for standards, certifications and training,” said the Director of ORT IC’s Washington bureau, Celeste Angus, on her return from a highly successful trip to Liberia where she set up the terms of reference for the project with partners and stakeholders – OSI, USAID and the Core Education Skills for Liberian Youth (CESLY) programme which it funds, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Education, the World Bank and the International Labor Organisation (ILO).
An ORT IC expert is in Liberia this week to lay the groundwork for implementing the year-long programme, which will also provide business development support so that businesses can be in a position to hire the apprentices they are currently helping to train.
During the war, schools were closed and teachers killed so USAID’s CESLY programme is providing young men with a primary education. But the programme only goes up to the 6th grade – and vocational education programmes require participants to have reached 9th grade.
“ORT will work in partnership with CESLY to fill the gap,” Ms Angus said. “We will provide support and training to both the apprentices and small businesses over a 12-month period in six rural districts, there already being more opportunities for people in the capital, Monrovia,” Ms Angus said.
Director of Special Projects at OSI’s Education Support Programme, Aleesha Taylor, who is based in Monrovia, said all parties concerned with vocational education were excited by the prospect of ORT IC’s involvement.
“We were pleased to have a preliminary indication from USAID that they are viewing ORT’s engagement in the CESLY programme as a pilot that may be considered for expansion in the next phase of programme funding,” Ms Taylor wrote to World ORT’s Chief Programme Officer, Vladimir Dribinskiy. “ORT’s expertise and track record in skills development and employment and your engagement in the CESLY programme are quite timely as the Government of Liberia and its partners are making a more explicit focus on youth employment.”
ORT IC enjoyed a successful partnership with USAID in a similar project in the Balkans from 1991 to 1997: in the Albania Human Resource Development Project, ORT provided professional adult training and workforce development for more than 26,000 people emerging from decades of oppression.
And in 2007, ORT IC’s Geneva office evaluated a $75 million World Bank-funded programme to reintegrate the veterans of Burundi’s 11-year civil war into peaceful occupations.
In Liberia, ORT will also make a significant contribution to the ILO’s review of the Government’s Decree of Apprenticeship, which establishes the common elements of apprenticeship programmes – things that we in the West take for granted, such as a contract between employer and apprentice detailing pay and work conditions.
“The ILO has invited us to join the Technical and Vocational Education and Training working group (TVET) which will allow us to share what we’re doing with other stakeholders and implementation agencies so that we’re all working together for the betterment of education and training in Liberia,” Ms Angus said. “The Ministry of Youth and Sports will incorporate what’s learned from our programme into the new Decree meaning that we will have a nationwide impact as well as making a change on the individual level for apprentices and their employers.”
Although OSI has a relatively small presence in Liberia its significant resources mean that it is an influential actor. The Director of its Education Support Programme, Hugh McLean, said that it had been looking for partners which could make the right kind of contribution to the country, which could build local capacity and give support of the kind that had been overlooked.
“When we became involved with ORT IC in Washington we found a common concern and common language,” Mr McLean said. “We found we were on the same wavelength.”
He said OSI was hopeful that ORT IC’s contribution would provide a good example to other agencies and to the Government of what could be done.
“We really need positive examples in this country,” he said. “Small as it is, this project could be a very crucial contribution to what is quite a small country. But it’s a country that has a lot riding on it: democracy after war and the first woman president in Africa. Both for the region and for the world it’s important that this succeeds.”
Mr Soros has given the project his personal backing.
“An educated youth is key to the future of an open society,” he said. “It is my conviction that equipping young people with education and the skills needed to be productive members of their communities will be a crucial step towards a peaceful Liberia.”
World ORT President Dr Jean de Gunzburg said it was a privilege to be able to work with the OSI.
“This project aims to help a population for which no educational programme has been implemented for so many years. Joining together the strengths of World ORT and OSI, in particular in the area of education for underprivileged populations, constitutes one of the most appropriate means to help them in their daily struggle for the basic elements in life,” Dr de Gunzburg said.
Founded in 1847 by freed slaves from the United States of America, Liberia now has a population of 3.5 million, almost all of whom live on less than $2 a day. The country is rich in natural resources – including water, minerals and forests – and has a climate favourable to agriculture. It has the highest ratio of direct foreign investment to GDP in the world but average life expectancy is less than 60 years and the UN Human Development Index ranks it at 169 out of 182 countries.
OSI’s Education Support Programme’s central issues and activities include supporting the renewal and rebuilding of education systems in post-conflict countries, promoting equal education and inclusion for marginalized groups, strengthening critical thinking and education quality, and helping civil society play a progressive and engaged role in the education reform process. The programme implements its strategies and programs internationally with particular focus given to Africa, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Russia, and South East Asia.
ORT IC has implemented more than 350 non-sectarian projects in nearly 100 countries to the benefit of more than two million people since its establishment in 1960. ORT IC’s work has received support – and praise – from major organisations such as the World Bank, Hewlett-Packard, USAID, the Coca-Cola Foundation, the United Nations and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
World ORT is the world’s largest Jewish education and vocational training non-government organisation and has benefited more than 3 million people – Jewish and non-Jewish – in over 100 countries since its foundation in St Petersburg in 1880.
Dear Mr. Emmanuel,
Once again, in my turn I received an email from someone who claims to be your daughter and ask for help from me.
so, on this occasion, let me ask, is that really your daughter or not? Please explanation from you in order to avoid things that are not desirable.
Thanks
dude my daughter is only 4 years old. she is not even in school yet, if somebody is asking you for help on the internet, its probably is a scam, i suggest you call the police.
Sisanda, Rudy, etc.I just receive a mail by lady who said the same story, now I know it’s a scam!!
I admire what you have done here. I like the part where you say you are doing this to give back but I would assume by all the responses that this is working for you as well. My kind regards, Dorethea.
Hello Mr Emmanuel
Please, I want to know the names of the government members of Charles Taylor and their functions throughout the period présidential . Please Mr Emmanuel it is very important for my research.
With all my respect
Ksouda Hamou
good day Dr. I would like to know if you are still alive and if you have a 25 year old daughter called Suzzy. she claims to be a frustrated orphan in a refugee camp in Dakar, Senegal.
I’m a new follower but have already found your site helpful and interesting. Thank you for putting out all this interesting information on Liberia.
Hi my name is Jordon and im doing a project on the Liberian Government. I was just wondering what impact the government had on your life and the people of Liberia? Could you please give me an example on how it did or did not have an impact on your life. If you know any-one who still lives under the Liberian government could you ask them this question a.s.a.p. Thank-you….Jordon
Just had an invite from one suzzy who claim you are late and that she is a surviving daughter.Could you do smething about this scam?
helló
Good morning, how do I contact you. I think I have been approached by a couple of men trying the same scam. Please contact me.
Thanks.
sofaee