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Ceasefire Liberia

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 by Ruthie Ackerman

The first time I went to Liberia in 2006 President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first female president in Africa, had been in office one year and young Liberians did not know what the future would hold for them after 14 years of civil war. New markets were being built for the women. Policy forums were being held for civil society leaders. Electricity was flowing to parts of the city that had never been illuminated. And children who only knew war were now going to school.

Yet despite the progress, there were former combatants who were still waiting to attend the rehabilitation programs promised to them at the end of the war. Some were amputees who lost limbs during the fighting. Many were now living on the beach or in abandoned government buildings because their families and houses were long gone. Even those who had been through rehabilitation programs found it difficult to get jobs as the economy staggered. Or they found the rehabilitation programs inadequate, with too few teachers, resources, or opportunities.

I wrote several stories about the young people I met and yet when I returned home to New York City I could not get Liberia out of my mind. As a journalist I had more questions: How are the Liberians who fled the war faring in the U.S.? Is America everything they dreamed it would be? What are their hopes and dreams for themselves and their country? I had heard that about 8,000 Liberians live in the six, six-story buildings that fill Park Hill Avenue in Staten Island, New York so I went to see for myself what their lives were like and get some answers to my questions.

I arrived in Park Hill just before sunset and walked over to the parking lot behind one of the buildings, where many of the young Liberians spend time hanging out. The hip-hop group, Wu-Tang Clan, grew up in the neighborhood and referred to it as "Killer Hill" or "Crack Hill" because of the violence and crack found on the streets. Refrigerators with doors unhinged, broken couches, and slabs of wood were strewn in a haphazard pile nearby. The air was filled with the stench of urine. The heat bore down. It was summer – the time when the young and able-bodied take to the streets to chat, unwind, show off, and drink their idle days away.

Many of the youth I met never got an education as schools were closed during the war. Some were forced to fight for warlord Charles Taylor, who is now on trial for war crimes at The Hague. Others fought for various rebel groups. America was considered the ultimate escape — the place where money was found on the streets and life was easy.

Liberia

Welcome to Park Hill – the place where the realities of life as a refugee collide head on with the American dream. Out of my work with Liberian youth in both Liberia and Staten Island I created Ceasefire Liberia, a blog bridge between the Liberian community in Liberia and the rest of the diaspora. Its mission is to create a dialogue between Liberians who remained in the country during the war and those who fled.

What started off as one story about Liberia has grown into an all-encompassing multimedia project, including a book, documentary filmwork, and now a blogging project. The blogging project is very exciting for me because it is a way to hear directly from Liberians about their communities –no middlemen — just their voices about the things they care about. Ceasefire Liberia bloggers have written about everything – from the death of Michael Jackson, to the increase of armed robbery in Monrovia, to ways to improve the educational system in the country. And people are listening.

There are an active group of readers who comment on the blog, encouraging bloggers to continue with their hard work. After so much divisiveness and so many years of war it is good to see Liberian youth taking their future into their own hands and showing the world that when Liberia is ready there is a generation of youth ready to pick up the torch. I hope everyone who comes to the site can join us by writing an encouraging comment, reflecting on their own experiences, or telling us about their communities. The dream is that by communicating here the boundaries that keep us divided will disappear.

Check out Ceasefire Liberia at www.ceasefireliberia.com

Ruthie Ackerman is a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute .

Tags: refugees
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Liberia’s Youth: Skills for Recovery

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 by Josh Chaffin

Note: To mark International Youth Day (August 12), we are featuring a blog post on the struggles young people in Liberia face in finding employment .

I’m talking to girls and boys about their lives in the suburbs of Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, West Africa. The simple question, “What do you do with your day?” is painfully revealing. They describe getting out of bed, praying, brushing their teeth and drawing water from the community well. Then many of them go to “the hole,” a local quarry, to “bust rock” all day. Others haul sand illegally from the beach for use in mixing concrete. Universally, the kids say they earn LD100 (US$1.40) per day.

When they’re able to save up a little cash, they might buy a small stock of flip-flops or cheap household goods and sell them along the busy road to the capital. This is typical; most people in Liberia don’t have a proper job. Instead, they depend on two to five “hustles” that they can juggle to earn enough to pay for their daily bowl of rice.

Liberia is trying to recover from a 14-year civil war that left the country in ruins. Most people here, especially women and girls, have never attended school. The skills training infrastructure wasn’t much good even before the war, but now it’s in shambles. The Women’s Refugee Commission sent me here to look into opportunities for education and training that prepare young people for the world of work. The idea is to find durable livelihood solutions in an extremely underdeveloped economy.

Girls and boys in Monrovia, Liberia. Photo by Micaela Walker/Women’s Refugee Commission

The unemployment problem is not for lack of imagination; these young people have high hopes for the future. Asked what they’d like to be when they grow up, many say “doctor,” “lawyer” or “civil engineer.” One bright kid even said “demographer.” Several girls said they’d like to emulate President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and become leader of the country.

Unfortunately, not many have any interest in agriculture as a career (as few as 3% of the country’s youth, according to one survey). That’s a real crisis in a country where more than 80% of the rural population is “food insecure”; they face hunger on a regular basis.

Since the end of the civil war in 2003, tens of thousands of young people—especially ex-combatants and women associated with the fighting forces—have gone through trainings led by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in trades such as carpentry, auto mechanics, soap-making and tailoring, but many say they can’t find work in the fields they’re trained in. Too often, the trainees have graduated with a tool kit and some startup capital, only to sell their assets and go back to a hand-to-mouth existence in day labor, subsistence agriculture or petty crime.

Up to now, the training hasn’t been based on market demand for labor. NGOs also admit that their programs have not paid enough attention to monitoring and micro-enterprise support services for graduates.

In urban areas, the best programs seem to be the ones that connect young people to internships and apprenticeships with local businesses, and offer a continuum of services to get them set up with their own micro- and small businesses. Again, careful monitoring of beneficiaries and their businesses seems to be a key to success.

Many skills training programs now recognize that for most Liberian young people in the rural areas, agriculture is about the only option for a sustainable income. Perhaps the most promising practice in training involves a combination of farming techniques, literacy and numeracy, life skills such as conflict resolution and reproductive health, and micro-business skills like money management and connecting to markets. The goal is to get small-scale farmers producing greater yields and finding markets.

But again there’s the problem that young people just aren’t interested in farming. You can’t really blame them; too many have seen their parents and grandparents work the land their whole lives only to die in poverty. Major investments are needed in demonstrating to the youth that you can make money as a farmer, and in training them how to do it.

I’m trying to convince the government to start a program that gets young people to design their own campaign to change the negative image of agriculture as a career. Without too much effort, I believe Liberia could create a patriotic youth movement around achieving food security. Agriculture is where the jobs are going to be, after all.

NGOs and other groups doing skills training who want to make their programs more responsive to labor market needs should check out the Women’s Refugee Commission’s new Market Assessment Toolkit for Vocational Training Providers and Youth , developed in cooperation with the School for International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University. It’s designed to help connect trainees with realistic livelihood options in weak economies like Liberia’s.

Josh Chaffin has held half-a-dozen jobs in Liberia since 2006, including managing a U.S. reintegration program for children and women affected by the fighting forces, editing the country’s Poverty Reduction Strategy 2008-2011, and helping to develop the UN Joint Programme on Youth Employment and Empowerment (UNJPYEE). He currently resides in Nairobi, Kenya, where he is developing guidance for UNICEF country offices on working with adolescents in emergencies.

Tags: economic opportunities, Liberia, livelihoods, young people, youth
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UN Security Council Bolsters Efforts to Protect Children in War

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 by Tzvetomira Kaltcheva

On August 4, 2009, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a landmark resolution that significantly strengthens efforts to protect children during war. This is the boldest step by the international community to protect children affected by armed conflict since the establishment of the UN-led Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism by Security Council Resolution 1612 in 2005.

The greatest achievement of Resolution 1882 is the Security Council’s demand to the UN Secretary-General to expand the list of state and non-state actors that commit violations against children during war. Formerly, the “list of shame” included only parties that recruit and use child soldiers. From now on, the list will also include state and non-state armed groups that kill and maim children or rape and commit other grave sexual violence against children during war. Thus, the resolution bridges a major gap in the child protection system.

Girl amputees in Sierra Leone. Photo by Marc Sommers/Women’s Refugee Commission

Resolution 1882 urges parties to conflict found to be recruiting and using child soldiers, killing and maiming children, or raping and subjecting children to other sexual violence in the context of war, to develop and implement concrete steps to halt these and other violations against children.

Resolution 1882 advances child protection in other ways, including through:

a reaffirmation of the Security Council’s intention to employ sanctions against persistent perpetrators of violations against children and a stronger cooperation between the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict and Security Council Sanctions Committees;
a call to countries to utilize national and international justice mechanisms, criminal courts and tribunals to bring perpetrators of violations to justice;
a commitment of the Security Council to follow up on all its requests and recommendations put forward in previous resolutions, Presidential Statements and Security Council Working Group decisions.

While the very adoption of the new resolution is an admirable achievement in itself, now is the time for the Council to ensure that all provisions in Resolution 1882 are implemented in a timely and efficient manner. The Council must take concrete actions to guarantee real and tangible change in the lives of girls and boys trapped amidst the violence of armed conflict and to stop the impunity that persistent violators have enjoyed.

Tzvetomira Kaltcheva is a consultant for the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, an international network of humanitarian and human rights organizations, which seeks to end violations against children affected by armed conflict. For more information, visit www.watchlist.org .

Tags: children, conflict, resolution 1882, Security Council, United Nations
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Going to school…it’s a matter of life and death

Thursday, May 28th, 2009 by Gerald Martone

“A woman who is pregnant has one foot in the grave.”

This is a well known maxim among the peoples of the Darfur region of Sudan.

Every minute, a woman dies giving birth somewhere in the world. By the time you finish reading this blog entry, several women and girls will have died giving life.

[Editor’s note: See our April 7 blog entry, World Health Day: Facing Maternal Mortality , by Grace Kodindo, for more on maternal mortality.]

For many women and girls around the world, pregnancy and childbirth are life-threatening events. The routine obstetrical complications of being pregnant and giving birth can be deadly—especially in impoverished environments.

A recent UNICEF study revealed that a girl in southern Sudan has a greater probability of dying in pregnancy or childbirth than completing primary school: a girl’s chances of dying from the complications of pregnancy or childbirth are about 1 in 6 in southern Sudan; her chances of completing primary school are 1 in 100. This is a particularly cruel irony because one of the most effective means to space births and control family size is through basic education. Education of girls promotes a shift from the quantity of children to the quality of children’s lives.

Nowhere to go, nowhere to be... Few opportunities for girls in Otash camp in Darfur. Photo by Gerald Martone/IRC

A girl who completes secondary school has, on average, at least one less child in her lifetime than a girl who completes only primary school.

Educational opportunities offer more life alternatives to girls and young women in all societies. The United Nations reports that extending a girl’s schooling beyond seven years has been proven to delay marriage and childbearing.

Education also has an indirect but considerable effect on child-spacing. Among refugees and displaced people, this is a matter of life and death.

One can only imagine the dangers in a refugee camp. Ninety-nine percent of maternal deaths occur in the developing world where most humanitarian emergencies occur. Approximately 6-14 percent of women and girls of reproductive age in a refugee camp are pregnant at any time. When you consider that about 15 percent of all pregnancies—in any society in the world—routinely result in obstetric complications, a simple calculation reveals the dangers that await girls with poor access to health care and little opportunity for education as is the case in most refugee settings.

But the impact of girls’ education has a dramatic effect on child survival as well. Each year of a girl’s schooling results in a 5 to 10 percent reduction in infant deaths. Education results in fewer and healthier children. David Werner, in “Questioning the Solution ,” noted that:

“Maternal education is clearly associated with children’s mortality, in that a child’s probability of dying is inversely related to the mother’s years of schooling. Maternal education in one of the strongest socioeconomic factors associated with children’s survival.”

A revealing report issued by the International Save the Children Alliance observes that reaching maturity without basic literacy skills and rudimentary hygiene awareness “can lead to a life of grueling work and an early death.”

“Babies born to mothers with no education are twice as likely to die as those born to mothers with three years or more of primary education.”

From these perspectives, it is hard to refute that education for girls is a lifesaving intervention.

Gerald Martone is the Director of Humanitarian Affairs for the International Rescue Committee .

Tags: childbirth, education, girls, maternal mortality, pregnancy, refugee women, survival
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World Health Day: Facing Maternal Mortality

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 by Grace Kodindo

In June 2008, while I was working in a province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that continues to be severely affected by the nation’s protracted conflict, a woman arrived at the hospital, hemorrhaging profusely. She had been pushed to the hospital on a bicycle, from a health center 2.6 miles away. After delivering a healthy infant earlier that day, she had experienced placental retention, a common cause of postpartum hemorrhage and infection. If a provider has been trained to manage this complication, it is treatable. But the nurse who had delivered the woman’s infant could not help her. By pure chance, however, that nurse had heard that—for one day, this particular day only—a doctor would be at a hospital some distance away. The woman’s family had then loaded her onto the bicycle and pushed her, for hours, to the hospital. Fortunately, the rumors had been true: a doctor was available, and he was able to stop the hemorrhaging. Although her situation remained critical, the woman did not die that day. I left before hearing whether she ultimately survived, and I often wonder about her ultimate fate.

This woman’s luck was uncommon. More often than not, if a woman in the developing world experiences complications during birth, she will die. Unless all the stars align—the pregnant woman knows she needs care and is permitted to seek it, transportation is available, she reaches the facility in time, trained health workers are available to provide emergency care and there are adequate antibiotics, sterile materials and other supplies—she has little chance of survival. In a conflict setting such as the DRC, or during the aftermath of a natural disaster, a woman may have even less chance.

Woman in the Democratic Republic of Congo, not to be forgotten. Photo by Jessica Scranton/RAISE Initiative

Grace Kodindo, speaking at the Reproductive Health in Emergencies Conference 2008 in Kampala, Uganda. Photo by Sue O'Connor/RAISE Initiative

I am an African OBGYN and the Technical/Clinical Advisor for the Reproductive Access, Information and Services in Emergencies (RAISE) Initiative. Much of my clinical work has occurred in conflict settings, and I have seen firsthand the widespread lack of vital reproductive health care for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). Indeed, RAISE facility assessments confirm that relatively few health centers and health workers are equipped to meet this need.

WHO has recognized the grave importance of health facilities and health workers in both natural disasters and conflict-related emergencies. To mark World Health Day 2009 , WHO has established a cadre of best practices that will improve the safety of health facilities and the efficacy of health workers in all types of emergencies.

But we must go even further.

All actors need to bear in mind that during war and disaster, not all deaths and injuries are directly due to the emergency itself. Death and severe morbidity can often be the result of unmet reproductive health needs, which are frequently critical in the developing world. But all too often reproductive health services were not part of the health infrastructure to begin with. Being prepared to address reproductive health needs in times of crisis can become a catalyst for establishing reproductive health infrastructure.

Much of the vast gap between developed and developing nations is due to extreme inequities in access to emergency obstetric care. To bridge this gap, and save many lives that are now needlessly lost, provisions that specifically seek to prevent and manage obstetric complications must be created and implemented.

Proper care in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Photo by Jessica Scranton/RAISE Initiative

Training non-physician clinicians in emergency obstetric care is a crucial step in saving lives, both in emergencies and in times of relative stability. In many areas, only doctors are trained to manually remove the placenta and perform other vital emergency obstetric functions. But most regions in Africa have an intense shortage of doctors. I can personally attest to this reality, as one of only two OBGYNs working in the entire country of Chad for some ten years. Initiatives such as the Health Systems Strengthening for Equity (HSSE) project are now, thankfully, advocating for the important and lifesaving role of non-physician clinicians.

So as we mark World Health Day 2009, let us not forget about the acute reproductive health needs of refugees and IDPs. This basic human right is not only for the “lucky” few, or to be stumbled upon by chance. Instead, we must actively push for the tried-and-true solutions that can save lives around the world.

Read facts and stats on maternal and newborn care in conflict situations.
Learn more about RAISE and access fact sheets on the many components of reproductive health, including emergency obstetric care.
Find out more about the Health Systems Strengthening for Equity project.

Grace Kodindo, OBGYN, was head of maternity in Chad for 10 years. Currently the Technical/Clinical Advisor for the Reproductive Access, Information, and Services in Emergencies (RAISE) Initiative, Dr. Kodindo is featured in a BBC documentary on maternal mortality titled Dead Mums Don’t Cry.

The Women’s Refugee Commission is a RAISE advocacy partner. Learn more about how we are working with RAISE to realize the right to quality reproductive health services for all peoples affected by conflict and natural disasters.

Tags: congo, maternal mortality, RAISE, reproductive health, women
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