Hope is On the Horizon

Liberia's youth suffered most during the country's cycles of tyranny and war. Photo: Dan Sadowsky/Mercy Corps

One hundred and fifty-eight years ago, freed slaves from the United States founded Liberia in hopes of creating an America where life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were truly inalienable rights. "The love of liberty brought us here" was enshrined as the West African nation's motto.

Today, however, their descendants wish only for a country that is not plagued by bloodshed and political instability.

As I journey to Liberia, my first guides to this storied and troubled country have been fellow travelers: Americo-Liberians. Most are returning to their native country to participate in a historic election. In two weeks, Liberia will hold its first peacetime ballot since 1991, and to hear the Americo-Liberians tell it, the vote represents an opportunity to wipe the slate clean after a quarter-century of tyranny, anarchy and civil war.

Americo-Liberians trace their lineage to the country's black American colonizers. Today they remain the most well-educated, well-off and well-connected Liberians, despite comprising less than five percent of the population.

And, because most live in the U.S. or other well-tuned democracies, they are the most clear-eyed about the daunting task ahead. "What we need," said a suburban city planner on my flight, "is someone who can get us out of this mess."

Seeking a Way Out of Turmoil

Liberia's "mess" includes a government unable to provide basic services like water, electricity and sanitation to its citizenry; an entire generation of young people who haven't gone to school; and a tradition of presidential corruption that has turned the nation's lucrative natural resources - timber, ore and diamonds, in particular - into personal wealth generators while leaving Liberians among the poorest people on earth.

As I await a flight from Washington's Dulles Airport that would ferry me to Brussels and onto Monrovia, I join three Liberians holding an animated discussion about the upcoming elections. A city planner shows me a button for the candidate he supports, a corporate lawyer named Varney Sherman, when an Americo-Liberian friend of his from Atlanta arrives. (The Americo-Liberian community, which numbers somewhere between 75,000 to 160,000 strong, is astonishingly close-knit.)

He professes surprise that his friend is wearing a ballcap and shirt emblazoned with the political party of a rival candidate, international soccer star George Weah, the presumptive front-runner. The needling starts almost immediately.

"Why are you supporting Weah? Where is his experience?"

"How do you gain experience as president?" comes the response. "Besides, the others are recycled politicians."

After a few minutes worth of lively - but very friendly - exchanges, they laugh, slap hands and exclaim their joy at being able to debate politics without the threat of gunplay.

"This is interesting! It's intellectual. And nobody's getting killed," the Weah supporter nearly shouts.

But Washington, D.C., is a long way from Liberia, where 80 percent of the people are illiterate and children are more familiar with how to operate a Soviet-style automatic rifle than how to read a book. There's a dire need to socialize an entire generation of children who have grown up knowing only war.

This is where Mercy Corps comes in.

Teaching The Building Blocks of Peaceful Community

One of the agency's most promising programs is aimed squarely at helping these young people, aged 18-30, whose lives have been defined by conflict. Most Liberians in this age range do not have stable jobs, a formal education or any land to their name. A sizable number were conscripted into battle. Reaching this population is critical if the country is to successfully reverse course.

The Youth Education for Life program is designed to teach the basics to those who never got a chance to attend school or experience socialization into a peaceful community. It includes classes on literacy and numeracy; leadership and governance; self-respect and respect for others; inventorying your own skills and figure out how to put them to use in your community.

These skills are almost shockingly elementary, but in a country that has experienced as much trauma as Liberia, they are an absolutely essential starting point.

"For 14 years, people were putting everything they owned on their head and walking to the next town to escape violence. They were only thinking about their survival today," Michelle Rebosio, Mercy Corps' YES program director. "We're trying to get people to start thinking about tomorrow."

The Americo-Liberians sound like they're looking forward to what tomorrow may bring. Harry, a real-estate investor and anesthesiologist assistant in his late 30s, told me he feels a duty to help make sure the next president is successful.

"We can't just keep sending money from the U.S. That won't bring water, it won't bring electricity, it won't bring good government," he told me. "And we can't sit back and expect the politicians to do it. They keep failing us."

The Liberians I've met so far believe a new day is dawning in their homeland. And hope is on the horizon.