Liberian History, Context and Conditions: 

Liberia is Africa’s oldest free state, from 1847. It is among the poorest nations in the world. Founded as home of freed American slaves in the 1800s, African Americans (also “Americo-Liberians”) assumed leadership from the colonization era until 1980. That year, Master Sergeant Samuel K. Doe took power through a military coup, killing late President William R. Tolbert, Jr. and his leadership.

In 1989-90, the cycle of violence returned when rebel leader Charles Taylor of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) led a popular uprising beginning in northeastern Nimba County.  In 1997, after 12 successive peace accords brokered by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and after he controlled nearly 80% of the countryside, Liberian voters elected Charles Taylor by a sound majority. Violence again resumed two years later. Citing institutionalized tyranny and dictatorship, Liberia United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) staged another uprising through Lofa County in the northwest. Together with its splinter group Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), LURD conducted more civil war through mid-2003. 

With the aid of other African nations, the factions agreed in Summer, 2003 to the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA), leading to Charles Taylor’s resignation and exile to Nigeria. An interim government headed by Chairman Charles Guyde Bryant administered the country through the October and November, 2005 presidential elections. In January, 2006, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became Africa’s and Liberia’s first freely elected female head of state.

Establishment of YHRI’s Local Chapter, Profile:

Monrovians Thomas Mitchell and Teewon Dolopei established YHRI Liberia in May 2005. It is incorporated and fully accredited as a non-profit educational and charitable organization in Liberia. YHRI-Liberia’s governing executives are currently Country Director Teewon Dolopei, Program Director Boersen Hinneh and YHRI West African Regional Coordinator Jay Yarsiah. Messrs. Dolopei, Hinneh and Yarsiah are each in their 20s, each graduates of or current college-level students and all Monrovia-area residents.    

With the direct, on-the-ground assistance of YHRI’s Director for International Development Tim Bowles, these three young men have been the core of a succession of workshops and community activation projects for high school age young people in Monrovia. 

Liberian Chapter Trains Human Rights Leaders through Workshops and Competitions:

Samuel Stevquoah, Chief of Staff to Liberian Vice-President Joseph Boakai; Tim Bowles; and Frances Johnson-Morris, Liberian Attorney General, YHRI-Liberia human rights leadership competition, July 6, 2007

In November, 2006, YHRI-Liberia again teamed with Mr. Bowles to present a comprehensive workshop on the 30 rights of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the Don Bosco Youth Center, Matadi Estate, Monrovia.  As a result, the participating 35 students formed human rights clubs at Cathedral Catholic School, Monrovia College, St. Peter’s Lutheran, William VS Tubman High School, Muslim Congress, Global Cares Academy, J.J Roberts United Methodist School and Len Miller High Schools. At regular meetings over the ensuing five months, YHRI-Liberia worked with these chapters to strengthen their membership and increase awareness of the Universal Declaration.

In March, 2007, YHRI-Liberia and Tim Bowles produced human rights education and activation programs at Cathedral Catholic School and William VS Tubman High School and then hosted another successful workshop for area high schools human rights clubs at the Don Bosco Youth Center. 

Out of this March 29, 2007 all-day session at Don Bosco arose a three-month human rights research and activation competition between the clubs at Cathedral, Tubman High, Lutheran, Global Cares, and Monrovia College. YHRI-Liberia assigned each school club the challenge of analyzing the effectiveness of a separate human rights NGO active in Liberia. Cathedral took on the National Human Rights Center of Liberia (NHRCL), Tubman High researched UNESCO, Global Cares analyzed UNICEF, Lutheran reviewed the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, and Monrovia College studied the Foundation for International Dignity (FIND).

Aided by follow-up consultations and monitoring from the chapter, primarily by Mr. Hinneh, student club members were to research their respective assigned agency through direct contact with that NGO, visitations, interview, compilation and review of the agency’s publications and other publicly available documents. 

On July 6, 2007, with Tim returning again to Liberia for the fourth time in 13 months, YHRI-Liberia conducted a culminating human rights leadership event for the five competing schools at the Ministry of Gender auditorium. By now, YHRI and YHRI-Liberia had been able to generate encouraging interest and support from both the government and leading NGOs.  Among the speakers were Vice-President Mr. Boakai’s Chief of Staff Mr. Samuel Stevquoah, Liberian Minister of Labor Samuel Woods, II, and the Attorney General of Liberia Frances Johnson-Morris. Executives from the Foundation for International Dignity (FIND) and the National Human Rights Center of Liberia (NHRCL) – each of which have entered Memorandums of Understanding (MOU’s) for collaboration with YHRI-Liberia – also attended and contributed.   University of Liberia’s Vice President Dr. Martin Scott also attended, continuing his institution’s strong support of the program.

YHRI-Liberia and Mr. Bowles had preceded the event with a July 5 workshop for the leaders of each club, covering the basics of leadership and public speaking.  Thus, at the July 6 event, the students applied their improving advocacy skills to public presentations of the school’s projects. Several college student leaders volunteered as judges. After some spirited performances, the students of Cathedral Catholic School came away as the first place winners of a new computer system for their research and analysis of the NHRCL. Among their findings:

“Out of the Centre’s five major programs, we selected Women and Children Protection. The program is intended to increase opportunities for women and children to gain greater freedom, including the rights to live free from physical violence and other forms of abuse including drugs, rape, sex slavery, torture, forced marriage, teenage pregnancy, female genital mutilation, etc.”

“The Centre has action plans to address these abuses including education and awareness raising;  increasing support for reform legislation, including new inheritance and rape laws; monitoring, documenting and reporting on the incidence of violations and abuses; advocacy on the plight of victims; and support training for women and encouragement for them to take up community leadership positions.”

“The Centre is meeting its program goals. We observed many women and children now protected from abuse as a result of the Centre’s community awareness efforts. The Centre has also been able to publicize reform legislation and to support the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission’s prosecutions of abuses.”

“We recommend the Centre open sub-branches in every county in Liberia and take initiative to raise operating funds through events that would attract public attention, including musical concerts and sporting events.”

A key aspect of the process was to have no real losers. By design, the judges emphasized the strengths and hard work of each of the schools in announcing their findings, with all participants receiving human rights education materials for their libraries and certificate recognition for their efforts. Thus, student leaders from each of the five schools submitted very positive written statements at the close of the program.  For example:

“This program made it possible for me to educate and witness to others to ensure the dream and vision of human rights becomes a reality universally in Liberia.” AMW, Tubman High

“Now that I know that I have these rights and how to use them, I will begin to carry them out to my school and community.  I will teach my friends and others about human rights so that they will not offend other’s rights.”  JT, Monrovia College High

“My plan is to make sure people from all over know their rights.  I ask God to bless me and give me a long life so that I can share these rights with my friends all over the world.”  MBL, Global Cares Academy

“I have gained the ability to educate others about their basic human rights and how to research and interview [on human rights issues]. I intend to strengthen the club in my school and in Liberia and to become a great human rights activist in the future.”  CBS, Cathedral Catholic School

Human Rights Education Competition (October, 2007 – April, 2008), with Students Trained to Teach and Activate Their Peers:

Samuel Kofi Woods, Liberian Minister of Labor, speaking at the YHRI-Liberia human rights leadership competition, July 6, 2007

There is no greater indication of the success of our March-July, 2007 human rights leadership pilot than the enthusiasm and determination generated among the participating students.  22 –
from all five competing schools – showed up the next day, Saturday, July 7, 2007 at the Royal Hotel, Sinkor, Monrovia for another three hour-plus leadership planning symposium.

Out of this July 7 session, the students created an even more ambitious human rights education project to span from the beginning of the new school term (and the end of the seasonal rains) in October, 2007 through March, 2008, with a culminating event that April. Tim Bowles plans to return to Monrovia to help kick-off the program in late October or early November and again in April for the competition event in April.

Again under the guidance and tutelage of YHRI-Liberia, the student club members from these five Monrovia-area schools – Cathedral, Tubman High, St. Peter’s Lutheran, Global Cares and Monrovia College – will now seek to obtain tangible results as human rights educators in their own right, with the ends of raising awareness of human rights among their peers in a wide range of area schools and, in turn, of creating active human rights clubs in each school they touch. 

Following the engaging and successful pattern YHRI-Liberia has developed for its presentations to high school level youth, the students will train their peers on human rights awareness and activism through YHRI’s Thirty Rights DVD and UNITED video along with appropriate YHRI-developed written materials on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As the competition format proved so successful in raising and maintaining enthusiasm for the five-school March-July, 2007 pilot, this next step will also be a contest.  However, rather than have five separate school teams, these youth have determined to join their members into two teams.  The human rights club students from three schools are on Team A, the other two on Team B.

Student presenter for Global Cares Academy, Monrovia, Liberia human rights leadership competition, July 6, 2007

Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports Sam Hare, Jr. has agreed to help train and lead a team of YHRI-Liberia facilitators beginning with initial weeks of the school term in early November. Tim Bowles plans to return to participate in workshops during January, 2008. We are planning to approach and secure other human rights advocates and professionals to similarly volunteer their time in these early workshops. The training is intended and designed to equip the participating students to deliver effective human rights education to their peers in designated area schools, other than their own, through April, 2008.

The competition aspect of the project will include the documented number of students each team can educate on human rights (evidenced by written success stories), the number of viable human rights clubs they can generate in the schools visited, and the quality of the delivery program each team develops. The project’s proposed budget includes financing for adequate audio-visual projection and recording/documentation equipment and supporting educational materials for the use of each team. Obviously, the exercise will require them to effectively organize and execute over a longer span, as well as to develop public relations and interaction skills to gather support and cooperation for the effort.

The culminating event will be held in Monrovia sometime in May, 2008, with education, government, and civil society and press representatives invited. The two teams will present their experiences and its documentation, with college-age judges to evaluate and recognize the relative strengths of the students and to award appropriate education-oriented prizes.

Liberian Long-Range Vision:

YHRI-Liberia is pursuing this results-oriented approach with Monrovia-area schools as a demonstration of what can be done with like programs countrywide. Through its long-term collaborations with the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Youth & Sports, Foundation for International Dignity, National Human Rights Center of Liberia and other stakeholders, YHRI-Liberia’s long-range purpose is to spark and contribute to nationwide implementation of human rights education and leadership training.