Tuesday, June 12, 2012

More Than Me

West Point is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Liberia. Near 75 000 people live there with neither running water nor an effective trash collection system, and only four toilets to serve the whole population.
The houses are very small (about 1.5 meters by 2 meters) and made of corrugated iron and wood. Each house shelters more than 5 people on average.

Most of West point’s population is children and that is what you find when you walked around. You can find the youngest playing with bricks, wires or any other dangerous object they find around. The oldest basically ‘working’, either swiping, getting water or cooking (by oldest I mean older than 8 years old).
Many of these kids lost their parents during the war. The luckiest are raised by single mothers, who don’t have a stable income and can barely afford to buy food for their four, five or more kids.

The reason why I found out about these stories is the foundation “More than me”. They do an amazing job identifying the most vulnerable girls in West Point and paying for their school fees and lunch. Many of these girls are taking out of child labor or sexual abuse.

In Liberia 73% of the children are denied and education, over 80% of them are girls. Going to school is for these girls not only an opportunity to earn a living in the future but also a short term escape from their everyday life, in which they can learn, play and forget about their situation for a while.
During my visit I made a new friend: Beatrice. Beatrice is one of the girls who attends school thanks to the ‘More than me’ foundation. She lives with her mom and her blind grandfather. Her mom is sick and can’t walk. Her grandfather begs at the market. Beatrice followed me around West Point for three hours. Without saying a word, just smiling and holding my hand. She was taking care of me. Showing me the way around, helping me to walk around traffic. The only thing she said in three hours was: I am hungry and she was able to keep her smile the whole time, even when it was hard for me to do the same due to the heat, the bad smell, the flies and the sad stories around me.

“More than me” foundation keeps permanently raising funds. Tomorrow they are organizing a Match day to raise money to build a school. If you can check it out and make your donation!
http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/morethanme-girls-academy/

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