By Vivian Woyah
Gbehlay Geh, Nimba – Hope Center, a local charity group has announced plans to support more children in the program to help reduce the growing number of vulnerable children and orphans across communities in Nimba. Beneficiaries of the center are mostly children of farmers.
For the past two years, the organization has sheltered and educated at least twenty (20) children, mostly orphans and children of impoverished families who cannot afford to educate their children or look after their well-being.
According to Rev. Moses Wonbenyarker the economic hardship in the country, continues to push many young children and families into more destitution, thereby making life even harder.
He said from their intervention within communities, more rural families could barely educate their children nor provide all the necessary care. This he said is even worse for children who are made orphans and children of single or physically changed families.
It was against this backdrop, Rev. Ramington Leamah told this paper, the HOPE Center was established in Larpea, Gbehlay Geh District, Nimba County. The center currently caters to twenty children, providing them two hot meals a day, educating them, and providing all the necessary school materials. He said that given the huge challenges being faced by children in rural communities, the organization has set a goal of enrolling 10 underprivileged children every year to achieve the 100 target.
“From the experience we’ve had, every year we will add 10 children to the program because we realized that there are some children who have both parents, but their conditions are even worse than even some children who have no mothers and fathers.”, Rev. Wonbenyarker said.
Fifty percent of the children at the Hope Center are orphans while the remaining fifty percent are mostly children whose parents are alive, but cannot afford to adequately cater to them or children of single parents who need special care and support.
In 2023, Mr. Nelson Mendiogbo lost his wife when his two children, were 3 and 4 years old, leaving him alone to cater to them. The Hope Center, Nelson said became a beacon of hope for his two children.
“This area is an ideal place for a child to be. My daughter and my son came to this center because when their mother died, there was no one to take care of them and you know what it is for a man alone to take care of two young children. It was very difficult for me. Nelson said reflecting on his wife’s death. “
Hit by the Ebola Disease in 2014 that killed over four thousand people, the Hope Center had to cope with the hike in the number of orphans.
According to the Ministry of Health (MOH), there were about 3,091 children made orphans by Ebola, while a World Bank working paper put the number of children to approximately 4,200 Liberian children who lost one or both parents to Ebola.
Experts have warned that the rise in the number of under-prevailed children and orphans has over the years contributed to the growing number of street children in Liberia, a national problem Hope Center authorities say they are helping the central government to prevent. New data from UNICEF and the Ministry of Gender show that over seventy thousand (70,000) Liberian children are living on the streets with many of them having no access to educational opportunities. Some have become victims of drug abuse and street peddlers.
On August 28, 2024, the Government of Liberia, through the Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection, launched a new US 15M dollars project geared at taking 73 thousand children from the streets by 2030.
Since the end of the Liberian wars, and the Ebola outbreak, there have been street children in every county. In Montserrado, two in every five children are in the streets, while there are more than fifty thousand (50,000) in Nimba and about thirty-six thousand street children in Grand Bassa.
For the authorities at Hope Center, catering to poor and underprivileged children will contribute to reducing the challenges faced by children and reduce their vulnerability.
Authorities at Hope Center are therefore calling on the Government of Liberia, to extend support to the organization to enable them to enroll more underprivileged children into the program as part of efforts to reduce the number of children who could potentially end up in the streets.
Experts have said poverty is the major driver for most Liberian children ending up in the streets; either working as street vendors, being hooked on drugs used as child sex workers, or children end up doing a variety of unhealthy jobs to survive.
Child trafficking from rural communities into cities has also contributed to the growing number of street children. Oftentimes, children trafficked from the rural areas are brought to the city by people who make false promises of giving them better livelihoods and education.
However, the Hope Center says its intervention in helping children in their program is geared at preventing more and more rural children from becoming victims of such circumstances and supporting the central government in solving this national challenge.
This story is produced by FeJAL Mentorship Fellow, through the support of Internews Year 3 Media Activity Reporting Program.
