Liberia Ngo Aid

8/7/2019 Liberia Ngo Aid

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LiberiaRising from the ashes of civil war, youthful Liberia looks to the future with Africa's first female

president and a commitment to government reform.

Posted April 11, 2011 by Roger Burks

More than 100,000 Ivorian refugees in Liberia

Country: Liberia

Topics: Conflict & War , Displacement , Water/Sanitation

More than 100,000 Ivorian citizens have fled into Liberia as refugees from a violent crisis.Photo: Natalie Behring-Chisholm/Getty Images

Although a violent political stalemate has been resolved, more than 100,000 citizens of Cted'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) remain in neighboring Liberia as refugees. Mercy Corps has deployedemergency staff who have conducted assessments in affected communities and are now focusingon urgent water and sanitation needs.

Our team is working to put temporary water filtration units in place that will each serve the needsof up to 5,000 displaced people per day. These units have a short set-up time and are highlymobile, allowing for transport to multiple locations until more permanent water and sanitationsolutions are developed.


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Cte d'Ivoire's crisis stemmed from last November's disputed presidential election. A stand-off between two men who claimed to have won the election Laurent Gbagbo and AlassaneOuattara turned deadly, with each politician's factions squaring off against each other. OnApril 11, Gbagbo was apprehended and arrested, but not before four months of brutal civil unrestdrove thousands from their homes.

As many as 1,500 people have been killed and 300,000 people are displaced within the country in addition to the 100,000 who've crossed the border into neighboring countries includingLiberia.

Liberia, one of the world's 10 poorest countries, is ill-equipped to deal with refugees. Already-destitute communities don't have the food, shelter, water and sanitation to host thousands of additional people.

That's why Mercy Corps is pitching in to help alleviate this growing crisis. According to Mugur Dumitrache Mercy Corps' Senior Water and Sanitation Advisor and a veteran of many

emergency responses, including Haiti and Congo here's a list of what refugees and hostcommunities in beleaguered Grand Gedeh and Nimba Counties have prioritized as their mosturgent needs:

Mercy Corps Senior Water and Sanitation Advisor Mugur Dumitrache is in Liberia to identifythe best way we can help the refugees from the Ivory Coast as well as their Liberian hostfamilies. Top of the list: food. Photo: Mercy Corps

1. Food2. Non-food items such as kitchen supplies

3. Water and health care4. Education and vocational training5. Latrines6. Mosquito nets7. Livelihoods and agricultural inputs

Mercy Corps has worked in Liberia since 2002, helping villages and families move past a 14-year civil war that decimated the country. With decades of experience in responding to conflict,


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crisis and displacement, we are well-equipped to respond to the short- and long-term needs of Ivorian refugees and their Liberian host communities.

We will keep you informed as our response continues.

Video: Posted May 19, 2010 by Bija Gutoff

Welcome to Liberia

Country: Liberia

Journal: Liberia Journal: What Mothers Want

Liberia: Growing Leaders :


Community Radio in Liberia

Country: Liberia

Topics: Citizen Involvement , Civil Society , Governance , Peaceful Change




A lesson in how to shake hands (in Liberia)

Country: Liberia



Posted March 31, 2010 by Bija Gutoff

On Market Day in Gio Town, Farmers Learn A New Way toExtract Palm Oil

Country: Liberia


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Topics: Agriculture , Economic Development

An early sketch helped Mercy Corps staff review the benefits of the hand-powered Freedom-2 palm oil mill. Photo: Mercy Corps

Wednesday is market day in Gio Town, a small village in Liberias Grand Bassa County. Bymid-morning the stalls are crowded with vendors and shoppers. Sellers offer brightly patteredlapa cloth, sacks of foufou and rice, and piles of red and green peppers and bitter ball. Buyersroam the rows looking for pots and pans, shoes and a staple of the Liberian diet: palm oil.

Today theres something new at the market. Mercy Corps is holding a demonstration of theFreedom-2 Oil Mill, a hand-powered device thats used to extract the oil from palm nuts.

Traditionally, women (sometimes with men assisting) crush the nuts using a stout mortar and pestle. Its backbreaking labor that often leads to painful rheumatism. Moreover, the technique is

harmful to the environment, contaminating water sources with plant wastes.

More oil, less work

As part of its USDA-funded Food for Progress program, Mercy Corps is demonstrating the benefits of the new mill to farmers from the communities it works with. The mill is one of thekey inputs such as seeds, tools and fertilizer the agency is helping farmers procure sothey can protect their health, improve the quantity and quality of their crops and lessen damageto the environment.

A representative from the company that manufactures the mill explains how the process works.

After the palm nuts are harvested, theyre piled up and left for a few days while the skin loosens.Farmers then remove the hard caps and chop the nuts with a cutlass (machete). The fruit is boiledfor five hours until its soft, then poured into the mill. A long pole allows up to six people to turnthe crank that grinds the fruit into butter. In the final step, the palm butter is boiled to render itinto oil.


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On market day, local farmers give the new mill a try. Photo: Mercy Corps

The people who have seen this demonstration are eager to purchase a mill, says Mercy Corpsfield program manager Emmett Freeman. And the first ones to appreciate it are the women whohave done most of the hard labor the traditional technique demands. With the mill, they get moreoil for less work.

The new way is much more efficient. From 30 branches of palm nuts, the mill produces 15gallons of oil. The same amount of nuts, using the traditional technique, yields only five gallonsof oil.

Communities that decide to invest in this palm oil mill contribute 25 percent of the cost (aboutUS$250), while Mercy Corps pays 75 percent (about US$750). This partnership model, in whicha good part of the input cost is subsidized, has proven to be an effective approach becausefarmers who share the cost of their own equipment tend to use it more, value it more highly andmaintain it better. Too, cost-sharing is a more sustainable development model over the long term.

Support for markets

Mercy Corps Food for Progress program, currently underway in the four central Liberiancounties of Bong, Grand Bassa, Margibi and Montserrado, uses market-driven activities to re-establish and improve productive agricultural capacity in the aftermath of the countrys 14-year civil war. Were also working to support agricultural livelihoods, increase access to food in ruralareas and boost income-generating opportunities.

Mercy Corps is increasing agricultural productivity through targeted training and technicalassistance, and by providing inputs such as the palm oil mill to farmers. Were helping areamarkets function more effectively by improving the linkages between buyers and sellers and


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supporting agribusinesses and micro-enterprises. Were also improving farmers ability to obtainfair prices for their crops by supporting radio news programs that air practical agricultural

information such as market prices and community events. A Sweet Business:Cocoa Brings New Hope to Liberian Farmers

Country: Liberia

Topics: Agriculture , Economic Development

Liberia is a lush tropical rainforest, just the right climate to grow cocoa beans. And before thecountrys two civil wars, it did just that.

Farmers tended cocoa trees and sold the beans for export on the world market. But the long yearsof conflict decimated Liberias cocoa industry. Because they couldnt farm cocoa for 14 years, awhole generation of cocoa farmers lost the knowledge they once had. What little cocoa they didgrow was poor quality, and yields were low.

The people who used to grow cocoa were killed or displaced during the war, said Mercy Corpstrainer and technical advisor James Kiadii during a visit we made to the cocoa farm in

November. Now there arent many people who know how to farm cocoa correctly. The younger generation needs to re-learn what the older generation once knew.

Mercy Corps staff and beneficiaries at an 80-acre cocoa farm that we're working to rehabilitate inGrand Bassa County, helping farmers re-establish it as a new business. Photo: Nancy Farese for Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps has been investing in the revitalization of Liberias cocoa farming industry, withsupport from our own start-up arm the Phoenix Fund as well as the Aspen Institute. Wehave been working with the Liberia Produce Marketing Corporation to rehabilitate an 80-acrecocoa farm in Grand Bassa County, helping farmers re-establish it as a new business.

Clearing the land

First we hired workers to clear land that became overgrown during the wars, a cash-for-work approach that infused much-needed funds into the local economy. Were showing farmers


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women and men how to establish and maintain a plant nursery, introducing new varieties of cocoa trees and improved agricultural practices including pest control. With the skills they learn,farmers are growing their own cocoa seedlings so they can rehabilitate their own farms.

The farmers are learning how to inter-plant banana trees between their rows of cocoa seedlings.

The bananas provide the shade young cocoa trees need while theyre getting established, as wellas a valuable cash crop in the four to five years before the cocoa trees are productive. Oncetheyre big enough, the banana trees are cut down so the cocoa trees can get the sunlight theyneed in order to thrive. Mature cocoa trees continue to bear fruit for 25 years.

Higher-quality beans

A ripe cocoa pod hangs on a tree. Mercy Corps has been investing in the revitalization of Liberias cocoa farming industry, with support from our own start-up arm the Phoenix Fund

as well as the Aspen Institute. Photo: Nancy Farese for Mercy Corps

Cocoa beans are harvested at the end of the rainy season, and post-harvest processing is a criticalstep. Mercy Corps is showing farmers better methods of fermentation and drying that yieldhigher-quality beans.

Were teaching farmers how to build solar drying sheds, using a special kind of plastic sheeting,where the beans dry faster and more thoroughly than they did the old way, simply laid out in thesun. Before the introduction of the solar sheds, residual moisture in the cocoa beans kept farmersfrom getting top prices for their crops.

Mercy Corps also is working with vendors of tools and seeds to make sure theyre able to provide cocoa farmers with the supplies they need. In some cases, this involves building roads sothat both farmers and vendors can get to the rural markets where buying and selling takes place.Were also teaching the farmers how to get the information they need to obtain a fair price for their crops.

Mercy Corps long-term aim is to help the farmers become fully independent members of asmooth-functioning agricultural value chain the entire growing, processing and sales cycle

without outside assistance.


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Sharing learning and labor

On our recent visit to Grand Bassa county, we talked the women and men who are participatingin our program. A first group of 25 farmers has already graduated, and a second group of 25farmers is now underway. These farmers are sharing what theyve learned with their friends,

neighbors and family members to establish new cocoa farms on their own land, traveling to eachothers farms to share labor and put the new techniques into practice.

When the farmers work together, its better and faster, notes Mercy Corps programcoordinator Emmett Freeman (pictured here talking to a Mercy Corps client). Photo: NancyFarese for Mercy Corps

If you have 600 seedlings, you cannot plant them all by yourself, notes Mercy Corps programcoordinator Emmett Freeman. When the farmers work together, its better and faster.

Connecting to buyers

While not all the cocoa trees are mature yet, the Mercy Corps program is already bearing fruit.We have helped the farmers organize into cooperatives that now have access to credit for seedlings, fertilizers and solar plastic. The coop is building a central warehouse to properly store

and preserve the value of the dried beans. Most importantly, the co-op now connectsdirectly with buyers to negotiate fair prices.

Cocoa exporters, who sell directly to chocolate manufacturers, are now willing to make the longtrip over bumpy dirt roads to visit the farm and to grade and purchase the better-quality cocoa.That means farmers no longer have to carry the heavy bags of beans to market to meet with

buyers.


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I was fortunate enough to meet dozens of remarkable, incredibly capable people during my visitto Liberia particularly strong Liberian women who are determined to improve their lives, their families' fortunes and their communities' futures. Photo: Nancy Farese for Mercy Corps

Liberia was brutalized by 14 years of conflict, and even now seven years after the peaceagreement and four years after President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became the first woman electedhead of state in Africa its leaders and people are struggling mightily to meet the most basicneeds: food, water, electricity, roads, schools.

Since 2002, Mercy Corps has been helping the hardworking farmers of Liberia increase their harvests and diversify the foods they grow in fields and kitchen gardens. Our agriculture

programs are helping Liberians eat more nutritiously, protect against future scarcity and earnadded income by selling surplus crops.

Mercy Corps is also teaching Liberians basic literacy and numeracy, health and hygiene, andhow to mediate village disputes. Were helping women form savings associations so they canstart their own businesses. And were helping people practice the skills they need to becomeleaders in their communities.

The Liberian people I met are able and eager to improve their own lives. With just a bit of help,theyre off and running.

Posted March 17, 2010 by Bija Gutoff

Redefining Success: My Journey to Liberia

Country: Liberia

Topics: Agriculture , Economic Development , Education , Food/Nutrition , Marginalized Groups , PeacefulChange , Women's Empowerment

Glance down a deeply rutted Monrovia side street and you may see, at the end of the block, aglimpse of palm trees, sandy coastline and the rolling ocean. Blink, and you may briefly imagineyoure in Mexico or another beachy getaway. Blink again, and youve unmistakably returned toone of the very poorest countries on earth. Because while Liberia has lush tropical rainforests,


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and fruits like coconut and papaya that suggest easy abundance, life in this West African countryis anything but.

I was fortunate enough to meet dozens of remarkable, incredibly capable people during my visitto Liberia particularly strong Liberian women who are determined to improve their lives, their families' fortunes and their communities' futures. Photo: Nancy Farese for Mercy Corps

Liberia was brutalized by 14 years of conflict, and even now seven years after the peaceagreement and four years after President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became the first woman electedhead of state in Africa its leaders and people are struggling mightily to meet the most basicneeds: food, water, electricity, roads, schools.

Since 2002, Mercy Corps has been helping the hardworking farmers of Liberia increase their harvests and diversify the foods they grow in fields and kitchen gardens. Our agriculture

programs are helping Liberians eat more nutritiously, protect against future scarcity and earnadded income by selling surplus crops.

Mercy Corps is also teaching Liberians basic literacy and numeracy, health and hygiene, andhow to mediate village disputes. Were helping women form savings associations so they canstart their own businesses. And were helping people practice the skills they need to becomeleaders in their communities.

The Liberian people I met are able and eager to improve their own lives. With just a bit of help,theyre off and running.

Take farmer Jeanette Koleh , 36, who received training and technical assistance from MercyCorps to improve the quality and quantity of her crops. We thank you for bringing us theseideas, says Jeanette. We used to not have the idea to do it. Now we are planting a mixed cropand we know it can be a business. We are getting money from it, and we are able to send our children to school. We can care for ourselves.


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We are plenty," says Angie Summerville, pictured here with her daughter. "If one lady learns anew thing, everybody learns it, because we teach it to her. Photo: Nancy Farese for MercyCorps

Or take livestock breeder Victoria Dannies , 33, who learned from Mercy Corps how to raisegoats and is now proving her talent in animal husbandry. With the money shes earning, her twoolder children can go to school. Says Victoria proudly: I pay their school fees, I buy their clothes, and I can take them to the hospital if I need to.

Just listen to Angie Summerville , 30, who is not only learning about gardening, child care andhygiene from Mercy Corps shes also sharing her new knowledge. We did not have enoughfood, says Angie, and I was only able to feed my children once a day. But then I learned somegardening from Mercy Corps, and now I can feed them three times a day. Adds Angie: We are

plenty. If one lady learns a new thing, everybody learns it, because we teach it to her.

Spending time talking to the people we serve in Liberia has made me think differently aboutwhat it means to be successful. After hearing villagers sing a song about how cocoa will makeyou rich, I asked one farmer what it means to be rich.

Rich is having your household fed, he said firmly. Its keeping money in your home, so youdont have to live off another person. Its when people can come to you for some little thing some cocoa seeds, a chicken and you are able to give it to them. Its being able to take your kids to the clinic, to buy them medicine if they are sick. Its when people come and want to work for you, and you can afford to hire them, so they can feed themselves. That is rich.

I invite you to meet a few of the resilient and capable people I met during my travels in Liberia


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Changing Her Life With Goats

Country: Liberia

Topics: Agriculture , Economic Development , Education , Rural , Women's Empowerment

Victoria Dannies received valuable agriculture training through Mercy Corps' YES program.Photo: Nancy Farese for Mercy Corps

Victoria Dannies, 33, is divorced, with three daughters and two sons. Thanks to the training shereceived in Mercy Corps Youth Education for Life Skills (YES) program, shes able to takegood care of herself and her children.

Victoria learned how to raise goats, and she now breeds and raises them to sell at market.Mercy Corps taught me how to care for them, says Victoria, holding a healthy-looking kid onher lap. I go into the bush and break off the cassava leaves and husks and bring them back tofeed the goats. And, she adds, I learned how to cure them when they get the cough or the

running stomach. I get the antibiotic and put it in their water, and they drink it and get better.


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Mercy Corps taught me how to care for them, says Victoria, holding a healthy-looking kid onher lap. Photo: Nancy Farese for Mercy Corps

Victoria keeps one male and a few females to breed. She raises the offspring for a year beforeselling them for meat; a mid-sized goat brings more than $2,000 LD [$30 to $40 US] a fortune

by local standards. Her little herd is thriving; when we spoke with Victoria, she had six pregnantfemales, each of which will give birth to two kids. After a year, Victoria will have 12 goats tosell.

With the money shes earning, Victoria is providing for her family. I have two children who are big enough to walk the 45 minutes to school, she says, adding proudly, I pay their school fees,I buy their clothes, and I can take them to the hospital if I need to.

This Mercy Corps program is good, says Victoria. I tell them thank you. With a little boostand her own hard work, she (and her kids) are growing a solid future for her children.

From War Survivor to Community Leader

Country: Liberia

Topics: Citizen Involvement , Conflict & War , Education , Peaceful Change , Women's Empowerment


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I wish I had enough money to send my children to school, Ellen says. Then I could forget the

past and have some joy. Photo: Nancy Farese for Mercy Corps

Ellen Joe is 36 and divorced, with two daughters and two sons. Shes the chairwoman of theGbarpaywhea Community Development Committee, which oversees the village peace,education, agriculture and health working groups.

Ellen is a survivor, and today has assumed a position of leadership in her community. She hascome a long way. Her experiences during Liberias long war years were, to say the least,harrowing.

When war broke out on December 24, 1990, Ellen was married, with one baby daughter. In thechaos, she was separated her from her husband. She fled Grand Bassa County on foot with her child on her back, covering 500 kilometers in about two weeks to make her way to the far northof neighboring Nimba County.

I did not know anybody there, Ellen says in the whispery voice she slides into whenremembering the years of her suffering. I was just looking for safety.

Ellen traveled with her sister, who also carried her baby on her back. The rebels took her babyand killed it, she recounts, her eyes gone somber and flat with the memory. While we wereescaping, one of my friends was captured and raped by five soldiers. Ellen herself was beatenand tortured. At one point the rebels strung her up from the rafters of a huts kitchen area and lita fire underneath her. Somehow, she survived these horrors.

We did not have food to eat, she continues. We were beggars in a strange land. To survive,Ellen became a bush wife, trading sex for food and life. I was forced to, she says in the


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same monotone, eyes cast down as if to avoid replaying the images in her head. The soldier heldher for two years. Ellen is thankful that no children resulted from that time.

After the war, she relates, I left the soldier. I had to find my husband. The two were reunited,and they had three more children. But the marriage didnt last, and now Ellen is on her own. I

have no support, she says.

With all the pain and sadness she has endured, Ellen is clear about what needs to come next. Iwish I had enough money to send my children to school, she says. Then I could forget the pastand have some joy.

Ellen has taken advantage of peace-building activities, training and resources offered by MercyCorps in Gbarpaywhea, and has learned the skills to become a leader in her community. Her village is slowly rebuilding a process to which she is making positive contributions. Ellen isone of many, many Liberian women who are trying hard to put the long war years behind themand build a better life for their children.

UNICEF's positions

Tools for journalists UNICEF Executive Director Anthony LakePress centre

News noteUNICEF provides water quality testing equipment to the Liberian government

MONROVIA, Liberia, 23 July 2007 UNICEF today provided the Ministry of Lands, Mines,and Energy, Water Quality Testing Laboratory equipment and reagents for use at the LiberianHydrological Service in Monrovia. The supplies, worth $62,500, include thermometers,volumetric flasks, autoclave, microscopes, graduated pipettes, portable balances and reagents.

With this donation, UNICEF is reaffirming its commitment to helping the Ministry of Lands,Mines and Energy to rebuild the capacity of Liberian Hydrological Service in quality water testing, said Kabuka Banda, UNICEF Liberia Head of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene section.We urged communities to ensure that the water remains safe from the point of collection to the

point of use in an effort to reduce child morbidity and mortality related to the use of contaminated water.

In Liberia, up to 20 per cent of the deaths in children who are under 5 years old are attributableto diarrhoea and other environmental diseases. The high rate of infant mortality in Liberia can besignificantly reduced by preventing water related disease through improving hygiene practices


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and keeping drinking water safe, and making progress towards MDG 4, reduction of childmortality.

Receiving the items from UNICEF, the Deputy Minister for Administration John C. Nylander thanked UNICEF for the donation, describing it as timely and greatly needed.

These supplies from UNICEF are extremely useful and appreciated in revitalising thelaboratory. Water quality testing is essential to Liberias health programme, Said Mr. Nylandar.UNICEF has been supporting the Ministry to carry out its mandate since 1991. We would liketo call upon other organisations to help the Government of Liberia to fulfil a dream: alleviate

poverty, and fight diseases and illiteracy

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