Global Changemakers

Mahmud’s Project- Mmbehnienh! (iMHere!) LIBERIA

When I made the something thousand-mile trek from my comfortable Ivy League college campus back home to Liberia to run a summer project for out-of-school young men, I brought with me a nervous and somewhat heavy heart camouflaged undera tough and victorious exterior. With so many people watching the project from near and afar, I frequently worried about whether I would be able to keep street kids interested in an educational project. Today I worry about whether the project’s tight budget constraint can meet the needs of the increasing number of boys who walk in every morning. And of course it is a difficult task to turn down a teary-eyed woman whose boys have been out of school for the last two years.

Today, two weeks after the start of the program, we have 22 young men enrolled in the program. And while our budget provides for 20, we still have many young men daily requesting to enroll in the program because, in the words of 15-year-old Mitchell Dolo, they want to “learn so that [they] can be somebody in the future, too.” Mitchell who has been out of school for the last two years, is just one of thousands of young Liberians who are out of school because of prevailing economic and social conditions.

Like many countries, Liberia has a free and compulsory primary education policy. However, tens of thousands of children of school-going age remain out of school. With an 85% unemployment rate, many parents cannot afford to provide their children’s basic needs, contributing to the high number of youth out of school. Liberia is also currently facing a youth bulge (over 60% of the population is below the age of 35); coupled with the high unemployment rate, this is recipe for disaster unless we scale up efforts to increase school enrollment and substantially reduce poverty.

The Mmbehnienh! (iMHere!) Project provides an impetus for increased and sustained school enrollment and contemporaneous poverty reduction, however small-scale. Mmbehnienh! targets out-of-school young men ages 12-18 in Central Monrovia. We run a conflict management/ life skills program; a sexual and reproductive health program; a Speaker Series in which we invite professional young Liberians to share their stories with the young men; a sports program; a mentorship program; and an academic program five days a week in a seven-week day camp. We essentially seek to empower this demographic academically and economically; hence the project title iMHere!. After the seven weeks, we will provide scholarships for the young men to attend regular school. To date we have had as speakers in our speaker series National Port Authority Managing Director Matilda Parker and Population Services International Country Representative Axel Addy, to name a few.

Furthermore, we are assured that when parents are economically empowered their children are likely to stay in school. We are hence preparing to launch an economic empowerment program for the parents and guardians of the young men in our program. The economic empowerment program will provide special financial and business management skills as well as vocational and technical skills to parents, many of whom are illiterate market people.

 
As Liberia recovers from a 14-year-long civil war that ravaged all sectors of the society, the youth have a potential to rewrite their country’s history from one of destruction and despair to peace and prosperity. And education and economic reform are key ingredients to Liberia’s sustained growth and development. I am a living example and a breathing witness to what can be done, and I am immeasurably humbled by the opportunity to help my country become a post-conflict success story.

MAHMUD JOHNSON is a Global Changemaker from Liberia. He is a sophomore student at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, USA. Mahmud grew up and attended high school in Liberia. Stay tuned for more updates from Mahmud and the Mmbehnienh! Project!