Village Schools in Bomi County, Lofa County, Belleh District, Grand Cape Mount are receiving Mary’s Meals. 

The aim is to encourage children who have had their schooling interrupted by the conflict and displacement to refugee camps to return to school.  These are isolated communities many cut off during the rainy season. 

Hunger is a constant problem in these places with children spending their days hunting for wild food. The people are subsistence farmers and and are trying to re-start their farms abandoned during the fighting. Mary’s Meals here consists of rice and beans daily and seasonal vegetables and herbs.

St Dominics Secondary School has 750 pupils. 
It is one of the few secondary schools operating in the area.  200 pupils from rural areas board at the school.  Nearly half the pupils are also ex-fighters.  Some were as young as 11 when they were forced to take up arms.  Mary’s Meals are provided to all the children.  This school offers a chance for these children to catch up on missed education and for some a lost childhood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maternity Service
SIR is raising funds to build a maternity unit in Bomi Hills.  This unit will provide maternity care for 2500 women every year and will undoubtedly save lives.  One in sixteen women currently die from childbirth-related complications.  The unit will be run by local trained nurses and midwives supplemented by volunteer doctors from the UK who will work there for several months at a time.

Technical School
SIR has built and equipped a skills training workshop that will train school-leavers in carpentry, computing and tailoring. For the younger generation that has known only war, many skills have been lost among the family, as death, injury and displacement have prevented the transfer of traditional skills.  The training offered here increases self-reliance and provides hope for the future.

Back Pack Project
The chronic lack of basic school materials in Liberia is a serious factor in preventing children from learning effectively. SIR has been delivering bags of basic educational material collected through the Back Pack Appeal to school pupils in Liberia. 

SIR back packs arrive in Liberia

The families of these pupils would not be able to afford these items and the materials are of great practical help and are received with great joy by the children. SIR hopes to expand this project to include an increasing number of school children.

Mobile Health Clinic
SIR has been running a mobile health clinic in Bomi County, Liberia since 1996.  The clinic offers primary health care to the Gola people - a tribe of about 60,000 people who are mainly subsistence farmers.  The Gola people have been forced to flee to refugee camps on three occasions during years of conflict. Now there is peace once again they are returning to their looted villages and starting to clear their land for planting.  The mobile health clinic provides the only health care in the area and treats around 4500 patients per month.  It visits remote villages on a regular basis including a leper settlement.

Country background:
From 1999 to 2003 violence gripped Liberia.  A massive UN peacekeeping force has maintained stability ever since. 
Now general elections have been held and Liberia has Africa’s first woman president - Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. 

Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf has said she wants to become president in order "to bring motherly sensitivity and emotion to the presidency" as a way of healing the wounds of war.

She certainly faces a challenge in a country where it is believed 200 000 people died during the conflict. Experts agree that education - especially of these young former soldiers - is the key to lasting peace.

Population:
2.8 million
Life expectancy:
51 years
Below Poverty line:
80%
Development Index:
N/A