Liberia is RIsing again

‘’LIBERIA IS RISING AGAIN’’
is the reflection of Dominofrank,S.J. in the middle, with Liberian President Helen Sirleaf Johnson on the right and Rev Sr, Mary Amissah Fmm on the left.

Introduction
Dominofrank (Francis Suleiman) is the first of two children. Born, January 23rd 1968 to Lucy Aduku Dale in Kogi State of Nigeria, Attended nursery primary and secondary school in Nigeria. After two years of studies at Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, he got a Biomedical Engineering Certificate,1991, Worked in Lagos with various Charities Pacelli school for the blind, Anglo Nigeria Welfare Association for the Blind, Motherless babies home, Victoria Island, Dale and Dale Galleries before joining the Jesuit Fathers and Brothers of the North-West African Province.1996. Had two years formation program, (1996 – 1998) Served as Benin Prison Chaplain and Minister for social welfare for the juvenile delinquent home. Coordinator of St Joseph house Soup kitchen and faith House for the mentally retarded and physically challenged persons. Worked in St Joseph Catholic Church as pastoral assistant and Social welfare coordinator till 2000 before proceeding to the Philippines for further studies
After I completed my clinical pastoral education in the Philippines, November 2003, before returning to Africa, I asked to see the Burmese refugee situations in Thailand but I was denied a visa. I decided to visit the remote part of Beijing to compare life situation with the Philippines, I could not stay too long because of the prevailing situation of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome SARS. Finally, I went to see the situation in Cambodia. As a stranger to this war torn country, the humanitarian needs and demands I saw, were not only scary but also shocking, especially the amputees, land mine victims and the handicapped on wheelchairs. Then I remembered Martin Luther King Jr. “If I have nothing to die for then I have nothing to live for.”

Welcome To JRS
Little did I know that this was to prepare me for a greater mission ahead in Jesuit Refugee Service JRS Liberia. The Regional Director of Jesuit Refugee Service West Africa, Mateo Aguire invited me to work in Liberia to accompany, to serve, and to defend the “Rights of Refugees and Displaced Persons.” I arrived in Liberia on 4 December 2003 to coordinate the humanitarian mission in Montserado County.
The first year and half I was assigned to work in the camp. The second year I was rebuilding schools in Montserado and doing logistics for the national office. The third year I was building schools and communities within the Suehn Mecca District of Bomi County. All these needs had to be met in a country where basic means were very slender and demands very high.
A great missionary St Joseph Fernandez said that the greatest task for a missionary was the transformation of the “inner self”, though it sounds somehow radical against the popular notion of contemporary humanitarian mission. Humanitarian work seems like going to do good for the disadvantaged to make an impact on the poor people or in a popular phrase ‘to make a difference’. It is true that many humanitarian organizations enter the country with clear aims, objectives, targets, and most projects are time-bound. Actual results on the ground are judged by performance measures that are written in a proposal. A program or mission is considered to have failed if objectives are not achieved within the period; it has failed if actual results do not correspond to performance measures. If at the end of the period, the mission is accomplished and the donors are satisfied, then the mission would be considered a success. It is a mission with an immediate impact.
The images of internally displaced persons IDPs camps or refugee camps are less familiar to many. They are always sorrowful, depressing and a miserable place to work. No one would like to live in such a place. However, my previous experience of work in a leprosarium taught me that people have the capacity to adjust to any environment. People need to have a strong determination, a motivation that they can transform the place into a place to grow.
I could not understand, why people thanked themselves for being IDPs, because in the IDP camps. People had schools to attend, adult literacy classes were free, opportunity to learn different skills provided by NGO’s, UN agencies and to some degrees it was an opportunity to broaden their horizons, since many came from remote villages in the forest with little or no contact with the outside world before. It was rather a blessing in disguise!
Assignments
My first year working in the camps involved many dynamics. I realized that there was volatile peace provided by United Nation Military in Liberia UNMIL. I say volatile peace because the rebels were still armed. I decided to strive for peace education in all the camps where I worked by setting up Peace cultural troupes.
Montserado camps are the biggest IDP camps nearest to the city of Monrovia. They were about ten camps in all with the smallest camp having a population of about seven thousand people and the largest about thirty thousand people. The most traumatized and depressing people I encountered here were the adult and the youth. They were initially aggressive, rough, wild, and tended to be rude and violent. Their faces reflected red eyes, long faces and deep wounds suffered from a long and bitter war. Could these faces smile and know joy again? This was the thought that ran through my mind but interestingly, the children were generally happy. As long as they had food in their mouth, water in their gut and a place to sleep, they were as happy as any children anywhere in the world. The adults lived their lives based on a humiliating departure from home, deprived, lost, uprooted from community, and a sense of survival from a dangerous journey. For the children, there was a sense of arrival in a huge playground. This African proverb comes to mind “A child on his or her mother’s back does not care how long the journey takes.” Many children found the camp as the new playground home.
In this madhouse called camp or new playground, Brother Dominofrank should provide free education for the IDP children, adult literacy, and vocational training skills with the collaboration of United Nations High Commission for Refugees UNHCR and the Liberian Refugee Repatriation Resettlement Commissions LRRRC. In addition, I was asked to provide pastoral care to the same people through collaboration with the local Archdiocese of Monrovia.
I was asked to make sure: Children were in school, teachers were actively present in the classrooms, young people were enrolled for vocational training, we were able to equip teenage mothers with income generating skills to have enough milk to feed their babies and to stop young girls from getting pregnant.
There was no clear-cut distinction between Bro Domino, the JRS Director of social services from Mondays to Fridays and Bro Domino, the Catholic Church pastor from Friday to Sunday. The differences existed only within my heart and my approach to matters.
The camp was not a safe place. The fleeing refugee or displaced persons only ended their journey there because it was nearby. The camps were guarded by the United Nation military, yet life inside was full of violence. Women and children experienced daily physical and sexual abuse. People found themselves in the midst of terrifying IDPs coming from different parts of Liberia scattered in many places, exploited by either members of their family or people with authority. Tensions often arose between the IDPs and some humanitarian agencies because of unsatisfactory services, or for disregarding their cultural values. Stealing became a daily issue. Life was not secured even within the embrace of the United Nation Military Peacekeeping Force in Monrovia, much less within the camps.
To create a safe and peaceful environment for learning, either in the school or camp is an art. It needs imagination, creativity. We had to create fun loving activities in the programs; food had to be served in schools, in order to attract children and their teenage mothers. It was great to see the youngsters sing, dance, play and become involved in various activities around the camps where I worked. I understand that to be peaceful, to be secured or to be normal is to make it possible for children to smile, laugh, sing dance, play and even pray happily. I understand that when parents are happy, they will learn to make their wards happy. In addition, when children are happy, the parents and community seems all right, there would be no more war.
To achieve this I had to learn to laugh at myself and realize that I am just one of the stakeholders. The other stakeholders need to not only be well informed but also be actively happy with their involvement in the project. Above all, the need for constant monitoring and implementation could not be overemphasized with JRS. Little wonder the people called us Just Remain Steady. (JRS)
By November 2005 my team had trained and equipped with startup kits over two thousand four hundred Liberians in the skills of Carpentry, Tailoring Baking, Soap making Typing Vegetable Farming, Tie and Dye (indigo) Adult literacy graduates, Pastoral and psychosocial services are more difficult to quantify
With these accomplishments and others not mentioned, I had not only become very popular within the Archdiocese of Monrovia but also with other agencies collaborating with UN. I was the only international staff who was actively present on a daily basis.
I had no regrets when UN introduced their repatriation and resettlement program enforced by International Order of Migration IOM. Despite the large numbers returning to their home counties, JRS recognized that many chose to settle adjacent to the camps. JRS also acknowledged the acceptance, which local communities afforded to the displaced during their time in the camps. Consequently, the best way we could help the IDPs to thank the local communities was by leaving a befitting legacy.
Therefore, I became the Project Director of JRS Montserado. Within the period of six months, I had assessed all the schools in the district, rebuilt five and built 4 new schools in community where there had been none. Though my second assignment was short, it was well targeted and result- oriented.
In all, sphere standards must be strictly adhered to, keeping with the JRS mission to “accompany” the displaced, JRS traveled with the returnees to their hometown in the interior. Suehn Mecca District in Bomi county has traditionally been neglected by the government in Monrovia and has remained underdeveloped compared to other parts of the country after the war, despite the fact that former President Charles Taylor, present President Helen Johnson Sirleaf and Archbishop Michael Kpakla Francis hails from there. JRS was in touch with Suehn Mecca people during their stay in the camps. After a long process of assessment, JRS decided to assist the Suehn Mecca people in their places of origin through School Reconstruction, School Agriculture, Teachers Training and Pastoral projects. For the third time I was made Project Director.
It was not difficult to understand the projects and all the intricacies and to learn a new approach. The whole exercise is emergency in nature but it has to be developmental in character. To build schools and to open agricultural projects are part of our emergency packages, since there were no public infrastructures in the villages and the people do not have the capacity to build by themselves, nor even the government which is still recovering from the war. People had to be mobilized in order to take part and to take responsibility. People need to contribute towards the project, with labors and materials that are easily available in the villages. People must feel the sense of belonging. The projects are theirs, not the international communities. It is a developmental process. It is a struggling experience for me to understand these people back home. It takes time to make people realize that they are no longer IDP’s or refugees. It is not easy to work with people who have been living on handouts and relief materials over the years in IDP and refugee camps. It takes time to make people understand that they are the agents of development of their communities, agents of positive change.
Armed with hope and spirited team members, we persevered and forged ahead as the pacesetters. Now there are new agencies arriving in the interior of Suehn Mecca to live and work there. There seems to be noticeable changes, things are taking shape again. It is a great image to see women carrying buckets of water or sand, and their men tirelessly making mud blocks or clearing the bush under a humid and sunny day at the project sites. “Liberia is rising again” and people are ready to continue rebuilding their country. It is a great feeling to see school buildings and churches standing beautifully painted, and children are back to school. It is also nice to see plants growing in the farms.
It is true that in times of difficulties, humanitarian interventions are necessary, but for a long term, more than relief agencies, the country need investors to make the economy grow, to move the country forward.
At the completion of one year and three months, these are some of the accomplishments achieved by my team:
Reconstruction and furnishing of 4 school
Building and furnishing three new schools
Distribution of School Benches, Chairs Tables and blackboards to 10 schools
Reconstruction and furnishing of seven churches
Building and furnishing of five new churches
Starting five agricultural farms in Suehn schools


Conclusion
March 2007, before my departure from Liberia, I decided to visit the former camps of Montserado. The places looked strange to me, and most of the tents have all gone. What I saw was a skeletal caricature of what I used to know. Where are the hundreds of thousands of people who lived here? In this empty and quiet place, I stood and asked myself? In my mind, I offered them a little prayer. In some camps, no single tent remained only the ruins and remains of debris that covered the wild bush and grasses. I wish them good luck wherever they are. Liberia, a broken and wounded nation, has given me the opportunity to discover a very fundamental thing in my own life. In the midst of destruction, I found new enthusiasm, new energy, and tremendous strength to serve humanity. If the transformation of the “inner self” means anything, it must be the discovery of the new energy, to study and to serve humanity.
As the country moves forward, I need to move on too, to learn new skills, to equip myself with all the necessary competencies that will enable me to work better and achieve better results, to keep abreast with the signs of our times.
This article titled “Liberia is rising again’’ is published by Francis Suleiman as a summary of activities and operations during the years spent in Liberia Dec 2003 - Sept 2007
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