Three Elements to Assist You Achieve Self-reliance and independence as an Individual

The Chair and Members of the Board of the New Hope Academy

Mr. Augustine S. Arkoi, Founder and CEO, Better Future Foundation

The Principal, Administrators, Teachers and other staff of the New Hope Academy

Members of the Graduating Class

Families, Friends and well wishes of the Graduates

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen

It is a pleasing honour for me to have been selected as the Guest Speaker for the 14^th Graduation Ceremony of the 12^th Grade Class of the New Hope Academy of the Better Future Foundation. I am humbled by this experience. Today, 25 young persons – 13 females and 12 males will graduate from high school. Your Academy is fulfilling Liberia’s and the global community commitment to advance gender equality in the ratio of female to male students that are graduating today.

You have proven that when given the opportunity, girls can excel on equal basis with boys. And you have dismissed as false the idea that equal participation of women and men, in education, business, governance and other fields is not possible. Thank you for your remarkable contribution.

It is to you, the graduates that I will address my remarks. You are taking an important step, to leave high school, to start another set of steps towards fulfilling your fullest potentials. You overcame many difficulties along the way, not the least the effect of the tragic Ebola virus crisis.

You will face the real world with its opportunities, promises and hope on the one hand, and obstacles and new challenges on the other. I have no doubt that you have been prepared. I would like to share three criteria or elements that you may find useful for your journey.

It is in this regard that I will speak on the theme: ‘Three Elements to Assist You Achieve Self-reliance and independence as an Individual’

1.   Own your decisions and expand the choices available to you

Take responsibility for your decisions whether for your career choice, for your participation in skills development or your involvement in different social or other groups. Never be pressured or forced into deciding. Always make sure you have all the information needed for your decision making.  Take your time. Weigh the options and make the decision. When you decide, own the outcome and do not blame it on others. It is only when you own the outcome of your decisions that you can learn.

A Noble Prize winner, Amartya Sen highlighted the importance of choices in his economic development model when examining poverty and development. In his model widely known as the capability approach, he argued that the purpose of poverty reduction is to expand the choices and the extent of freedom people have to achieve what they value. Freedom according to Sen, is the ability to shape one’s own destiny as a person and as a part of various communities.

Therefore, the  purpose of fighting poverty is to expand decisions and options that are available to more people. You can take actions now to expand the options that will be available to you tomorrow – by learning new skills and increasing your ability to do new things that will prepare you for future jobs and other opportunities.

When the choice a person makes is a result of desperation, it may be the same as no choice at all. When thousands of a societies’ youths, at great risk to their lives migrate to distant lands in search for opportunities because their own society offer few opportunities for them, the society denies itself of its most valuable resources -youth whose ideas and energies, given the room to flourish can be the key to unleash even more opportunities.

2. Own your conclusions, based them on facts and evidence

The conclusions you hold are important. They shape how you view the world. There is a saying that two persons looked outside the same prison bar, one person saw the mud hole the other person saw the sky. One saw despair, the other saw hope. There are no limits to the number of conclusions you can hold, but not all your conclusions may be valid.

For conclusions to be valid, they must be based on facts, on evidence. Find your own way to have factual and balance access to information. Some people read more, but not more of the same things, but different perspectives too. Others listen to radio – but not the same radio stations or programmes all the time, others search the internet, others talk to people. The key is to always find balance on the different perspectives in order to inform your conclusions.

I would like to share few of my conclusions with you from my perspective as a student of social work, human rights and conflict management:

Conflict is inherent in every society. Scholars have found that the root causes of conflict can be traced to the denial of certain basic needs of groups. One of these scholars identified six basic needs: identity, participation, recognition, collectivity, justice and security. These needs must be met for all groups – Christians and Muslims, abled and disabled, women and men; persons living in urban areas and those in rural areas, and the many other differences that define groups in society.

Violence is a result of inadequate skills to resolve conflict and long term neglect of utilizing the skills where they exist.

The skills useful to identify, resolve and reduce the impact of conflicts are basic. They are skills that you can embrace and learn to use: negotiation, planning, advocacy, networking, problem solving, listening, communication, to name a few.

3.  Own your relationships, priorities those that enhance your potential

In the world outside high school, you will find that building relationships will become an important life skill. Whether they are relationships with individuals, groups, institutions, or communities, you must be able to exercise your free choice in the relationships your form. Relationships will take a large share of your time. They can fuel your creativity but also they can drain your insights and energies.

Whereas relationships can be with physical institutions or groups, you can also form relationships with norms and values that are important to society. Maintain a close relationship with the truth, be honest; maintain a close relationship with hard work, be committed; maintain a close relationship with justice, be fair. These are the values when you embrace will separate you from the rests. They are values important in Liberia and anywhere in the world. Integrity is achieved when you are able to uphold these values and norms not sometimes, to some people and some places, but all the times to everyone in every circumstance you face.

In concluding, a self-reliant and independent person (each of you graduating today) can become only great contributor to your personal and community development. To exercise self-reliance, own your decisions and expand the choices available to you; own your conclusions and base them on facts and evidence; finally own your relationships and prioritize those that enhance your potentials.

Congratulations, THANK YOU!

Liberia: One Elephant Too Many for A Small Room

The elephant in the room describes an obvious issue that is being avoided. In this piece, I write about one elephant too many for a small room as a metaphor to describe Liberia, a small country with a fair number of opportunities and challenges. Some of these opportunities and challenges find less prominence in the current political discourse. 

UNMIL has handed over security responsibility to Liberia after more than a decade of presiding over the post-country security. This development happens when the country prepares for milestone elections in 2017. A rule of law transition, guaranteed in the country’s constitution and its international obligations is expected for the first time in the country’s recent history. A successful rule of law transition will be a defining legacy for the ruling party, the myriad of opposition political parties and other stakeholders interested in Liberia’s long term development. As Liberia faces this milestone transition, the country has experienced significant economic decline caused by the impact of the Ebola crisis and the decline in commodity prices in iron ore, and rubber. Companies have shed jobs in an economy where unemployment exists at an unsustainable level.

There are many who have put forward their intentions to contest for the seventy five positions –President, Vice President and 73 members of the House of Representatives, the lower branch of the Legislature. Those seeking the people’s vote are important contributors to the experiment of democracy. Without their expressions to contest, there would hardly be an election. The right to vote and the right to be voted forms part of Liberia constitution, and its obligations under international law. Just as it is important that they contest with their time and energy, so too will be their ideas and contributions. Liberia should emerge much bigger, much more hopeful, and much more peaceful because parties and individuals wishing to contest come forward with their best ideas and their best intentions. 

The culture for constructive political dialogue among all contestants should be an encouraging feature of the election process. This is important because the binding constraints to Liberia’s development would not go away because of a change in the government the next day. The country has weak infrastructure, especially roads and power.  Difficulty in accessing finance for critical economic growth areas such as agriculture and manufacture, weak and unclear property rights, with less than 20% of land registered and titled deeded are among the binding constraints highlighted in the Agenda for Transformation, Liberia’s development plan. Other constraints include low level of human development due to disruption in school caused by the conflict; high administrative and regulatory costs, petty corruption in payment for licenses, bribes at check-points adds additional burdens. Continued risks regarding security and stability. Political dialogue among parties can also seek to address common agenda and principles about the critical binding constraints that should be addressed, regardless the eventual winners. Winners should not take it all. They can, because that is the current way governance is structured. Political dialogue should be directed with the purpose to ensure that good ideas and intentions from all contestants in the elections remain valuable moving forward.

The one elephant too many for the small room is inequality.  Liberia admits that inequality fueled the conflict. Growth masked serious problems of poverty and inequality in much of the country. According to Liberia’s development plan, the Agenda for Transformation, prior to the conflict, staggeringly, a mere 3.9% of the population controlled more than 60% of income and a large share of the benefits from the enclave sectors.

This harsh fact makes it more important for efforts, ideas and debates to focus attention to addressing inequality. The political discourse should benefit from factual analysis of the underlying causes of inequalities and direct commitment to equalize opportunities for all persons regardless of geography, ethnicity, religion, gender, ability or other social status or identities. 

Charles Lawrence lives and works in Liberia and writes in his personal capacity

Currency can and should be given to poor people’s experiences

 

In the development arena, currency to poor people’s experiences have been partly recognized in the requirement for participation, human rights based approach and poor people’s perspective as important to sustainable development outcome. Despite this, development industry disadvantages and unevenly weighs the value of poor people’s experiences.

 

A number of years ago, the Chief Executive Officer of a leading Western aid organization attempted something very daring. She would for one day, visit a village in an African Country, and like the many poor local people, experience in real life what it meant to live on less than a dollar a day.  I mentioned that this was daring, because even if this Chief Executive Officer lived with the reality  that it was only for one day and  that she will return to the comfort  of her real life, such an experience exposed her to unfamiliar and harsh living conditions – inadequate water and sanitation, inadequate nutrition, to name a few.

Unlike the local residents, the CEO lacked the coping strategies which are the combination of  social networks, skills and experiences that they have built over time to endure their realities.

In recent time, the involvement of consultants – national, international and contractors hired to research poor people’s situation either as evaluators of interventions or as assessors for the development of projects. These consultants are well paid. The communities that are subject of this research and evaluation and development learning are not paid. No currency is given to the validity of their experiences. Development industry has got accustom to paying for experiences and expertise packaged in ways with criteria that exclude the validity of poor people’s experiences. No they won’t be able to supply the evaluation reports with the same tools and scientific rigor that the educated consultant can. Yet, it is undisputed that they can tell their full story better.

No amount of education, position or influence, as illustrated in my example above, can truly replace the lived experiences of people living in poverty. These people live, think, love, learn, decide, analyze, plan, prepare. They are human beings with rights. Development industry can and should find ways to harness and value these experiences as important criteria for industry success.

Shocked and Horrified - I Take My Pen In Solidarity of Alleged Sexual Abuse Victim While In Hospital Care

I am shocked, horrified and refuse to be numbed by the recent report of a sexual abuse of a patient while in the care of Liberia’s  largest referral hospital in Monrovia reported in the local news today. It is in the spirit of solidarity, that I take my pen, to address important pending matter, from a social worker’s perspective – as it is a professional lens that I find most comfortable.

It is my understanding that the matter is rightly under the ambit of criminal investigation with arrest, detention and pending court action against the alleged perpetrator. Swift impartial justice must and should be served.

Yet this matter is not only a criminal justice matter.

From a social work perspective, a number of pertinent issues and questions should be addressed simultaneously.

A failure in the duty of care of the hospital to a patient entrusted with its care, by a person reported to be in its employ requires that accountability and responsibility for the failure at the highest level of management should be addressed.  In this respect, important questions to be addressed are: who had the overall responsibility to ensure the safety and well being of all patients in the care of the hospital facility? What systems are in place across all levels of the facilities management to monitor, prevent and report harm? Where did this system fail and what steps will be put in place to prevent reoccurrence and assure public’s trust?

When addressing these pertinent questions of duty of care failures, the management of the facility should commission professional independent and impartial inquiry with the aim of preventing reoccurring and seeking system improvement through actionable recommendations.

 Another important question to address is whether or not the particular incident is an isolated case or not? What systems are in place for patients and persons coming in contact with hospital to raise concern. What are the independent mechanisms to vet and test the system to ensure that it does into fail now or in the future.

Even more importantly, what are the steps taken by the hospital to support privacy, confidentiality, safety of the patient who suffered the sexual and gender based violence. What systems are in place for  medical, psychosocial and other recovery of the patient and family? What further support is needed?

The duty of care argument leaves the specific facility in question with no hiding place. They must come straight with answers to these questions.

 I will be waiting keenly for answers.

Recommended Course in Human Rights and Conflict Management

http://www.santannapisa.it/en/formazione/human-rights-and-conflict-management-xv-edition

SEARCH: Banking on the Currency of Trust, Integrity and Honesty 16 Years and Counting

It is a pleasing honour to offer the key note remarks at this event that marks the 16^thanniversary since the founding of the Special Emergency Activity to Restore Children’sHope (SEARCH).

SEARCH started in Sanniquellie, Nimba County as an idea bore out of courage and a deep sense of conviction during a difficult period in Liberia’s history.

More than a decade and a half ago, working for an international charity, I was part of a team of trainers involved with training community based leaders and members about children’s rights. The theory of change was that improved understanding of children’s human rights amongst members of society would lead to less violation and abuse in an environment of ongoing conflict, where these abuses and rights violations were widespread. Many children were recruited as soldiers into fighting forces, were separated from families and faced deprivation from basic needs and services.

Ms. Sondah Geepea Wilson approached our team with her idea to organize a community based intervention which she coined Liberian United for Children’s Rights. Ms. Sondah Geepea Wilson pursued her ideas, with support from others, in the process overcoming many barriers – to achieve today, an organization with an established track record of success and field activities in multiple locations including Montserado, Nimba, Maryland and Cape Mount Counties of Liberia.

 

Sondah’s experience and the success of SEARCH  as an organization is an answer to the question of lack of  or limited local capacity.To this question, SEARCH has shown that local capacities exist. Efforts must be made to meet local actors and their actions where they are and to support them develop and achieve their fullest potential.

I would like to pay tribute to Sondah and her team. In today’s Liberia, Sondah’s effort is an answer to another question – the question of leadership needed across all levels of society to transform problems into opportunities and solutions. SEARCH has contributed a new meaning to leadership. Through their example, leadership can be described as translating ideas into concrete sustainable actions through the mobilization of people and resources to achieving results.

From this experience, there are number of lessons that can be learnt for development actors, both local and international.

When positive ideas are given the chance to form and develop into concrete positive actions, they can transform lives. Undoubtedly, there are countless stories of children, communities and adults that are the direct beneficiaries of the activities of SEARCH.

Yet, ideas start small. They take a life of their own and with supportive environment, determined leadership, ideas can transform society. A society advances if it gives possibilities for good ideas to be nurtured and to flourish. Ideas regardless of the age, ethnic origin, gender, geographical region of their bearers, must be given a chance to flourish.

Too often, many positive ideas are not given the least chance to start.

When a society kills most of its positive ideas, it keeps searching, often from outside for what it thinks it does not have. Yet a society would advance much further if it utilizes the collective sum of its good ideas.

I would like to offer few suggestions as you move forward in the coming years, in pursuit of your organization’s development.

·        It is important that SEARCH remains relevant to the needs of the stakeholders in an ever changing context. Never separate from your core purpose. Success must challenge you to achieve even much more.

·        Develop your niche and through constant track record of success be known and defined by it. SEARCH should be defined as an organization designed to succeed because it commits resources and learning to the areas of its strategic focus and direction.

·        SEARCH should develop new and innovative partnerships. This may require veering outside the traditional type of partnerships to explore for example partnerships with private sector, academia and networks in and outside Liberia.

·        SEARCH should pursue financial sustainability through exploration of diverse financing modalities. While this is important, SEARCH should continue to bank also on the currency of trust, integrity, honesty that has been its hallmark.

I would like to conclude by congratulating you on your success, and to wish you all the best in the years ahead.

 

Charles Lawrence lives and works in Liberia and writes in his personal capacity.

The Dance of Words in Liberia’s Corruption Fight

Monrovia, 17 September 2015

Not too long ago President Sirleaf described corruption as a ‘Vampire’. This is a legacy defining description of a national problem. Implicit in this description is a connection made with the Ebola virus disease and corruption. This disease ravaged Liberia killing hundreds. The awareness messages about the virus disease went like this: ‘Ebola is Real, Ebola kills’. Perhaps too, ‘Corruption is Real, Corruption kills’. Corruption as ‘vampire’ thus has the same bloodletting characteristics as the Ebola virus disease. This new description of corruption as a vampire by the President represents an elevation from her previous description of corruption as ‘public enemy number one’.Yet words and name calling alone cannot safeguard a true legacy in corruption’s fight – actions and more actions are needed to follow these words.

Taking cue from the President’s firm words on corruption, the Liberia Council of Churches in its ‘Ecumenical Greetings[i]’ this month drew attention to what it terms ‘key issues that need immediate attention by the government to improve the livelihoods of the citizens’. The correlation between corruption and the improvement of the living situation of ordinary people is made. The Liberian Council of Churches indicated that ‘people continue to suffer from the ills of rampant corruption’ and asked for ‘stern and tougher actions’.

The ink on the Council’s greetings have not dried when the Director General of the General Services Agency, the entity charged with the responsibility to safeguard Liberia’s assets alarmed about vanished vehicles donated to fight Ebola. ‘Wegave out 317 vehicles but the audit report from the Internal Audit Agency shows a little over 200 vehicles are available, we are still looking for the rest of the vehicles[ii].”Vehicles are not too small to be hidden. Hopefully they will be found and the matter will be put to rest. If not, it will be another confirmation of the uncanny diabolical union that corruption has with Ebola. Resources used in the Ebola fight disappeared under the weight of the corruption problem.

The Government’s official reaction to the Council’s greetings was to attack the messenger – take the speck out of your own eyes first. In its response, the Government described the Council’s call for stern and tougher actions against rampant corruption as ‘public posturing’ done in ‘obvious disregard to the available objective evidence’ to ‘publicly undermine the ongoing fight against corruption.’ The statement charged that if corruption allegation is true, the Council must accept responsibility because ‘today, many public officials are members of various churches in the country’ and fall under ‘the moral and spiritual guidance of their clerics[iii]’.

The Council’s words against corruption have drawn official words from the Government that says it too must take responsibility. That the Council can and should take responsibility in the fight against corruption does not take away the truth of its observations about corruption. The Council’s greetings should not have been met with disdain and counter accusations.Both the Government’s official position and the claims of the Liberia Council of Churches seem to converge on similar conclusions: corruption exists, it hurts society and more actions should be taken not only by the Government but also the Churches and by extension society at large.

The ‘vampire’ that is corruption can be reduced with concerted efforts from broad layers of society. The legacy of communities’ resilience through their mobilization and actions to tackle the Ebola virus disease can also be the game changing catalysts needed to advance the fight against corruption. Yet community mobilization in the fight against Ebola was a complementary response to the Government interventions. This same collaborative relationship between the Government and the rest of society must be the mantra moving forward in the corruption fight. 

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[i]The Inquirer, Wednesday, September 16, 2015 pg 4 ’Liberian Council of Churches Ecumenical Greetings’

[ii] Front Page Africa ’Vanishing Act: Several Vehicles Donated to Fight Ebola Gone’ September 16, 2015 http://www.frontpageafricaonline.com/index.php/news/6275-vanishing-act-several-vehicles-donated-to-fight-ebola-gone

[iii] Allafrica.com ’Liberia: Official Response of the Government of Liberia to the Recent Ecumenical Letter of the Liberian Council of Churches’ September 15, 2015