IPNEWS – Members of the Diplomatic Corps, including the United Nations Family in Liberia, on Thursday, January 18, 2024 joined volunteers of the Joseph Nyuma Boakai (JNB)-Jeremiah Kpan Koung (JKK) Inauguration Volunteers Cleanup Campaign to give Monrovia a facelift ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joseph Nyuma Boakai and Vice President-elect Jeremiah Kpan Koung on Monday, January 22, 2024.
Senior members of the Diplomatic Corps, including the Resident Coordinator of the United Nations Family in Liberia, Ms. Christine N. Umutoni and the Doyen of the Diplomatic Corps in Liberia, H.E. Beng’yela Augustine Gang, Ambassador of the Republic of Cameroon, spoke on behalf of Liberia’s foreign partners.
Both of them expressed their deep appreciations to all the volunteers who had turned out to give the city a facelift ahead of the Inauguration Day. They even brought some of their staffers, who volunteered themselves to clean Monrovia, too.
However, the UNRC said that the UN was at the program to support community work, volunteerism, environmental protection and waste management. Ms. Umutoni wished that the exercise becomes part of the DNA of the nation.
Specifically, Ambassador Gang clarified that the presence of the diplomatic corps at the event was “very none political, none partisan, because we remain under the President who we were accredited until the last day.”
Earlier, Mr. John-Charuk Siafa, National Project Coordinator, JNB/JKK Inauguration Volunteers, told the audience that the Volunteers is a community-based initiative that was started by ordinary Liberians right after the announcement of the 2023 Presidential Election results.
“As you have noticed, there are a number of cleanup activities being carried out citywide. It may interest you to note that these same activities are taking place in other parts of Liberia,” Siafa said. According to Siafa, this is something new that is happening in Liberia. “Volunteerism is becoming the new lead for Liberia,” he added. “We are happy to report to you that as of today, we have recorded over 10,000 volunteers, who have signed up to clean our cities, only within in Monrovia, Payneville and parts of Margibi.”
He also disclosed that since the campaign was launched, the over 10,000 JNB/JKK Volunteers have removed more than six million kilograms of garbage from Monrovia and Paynesville alone. This number equates to more than 600 ten-tire truck loads, which have been taken to the landfill in Whein Town, Paynesville City.
On why the JNB/JKK Inauguration Volunteers Cleanup Campaign had asked the Liberia’s diplomatic friends to join the campaign, Siafa said, “We thought to call of you our partners to Liberia: bilateral, diplomatic, because you support us. We feel that we must tell you what we are doing and when the public sees you come around as well, I believe it becomes a testimony. This just makes a statement that we all are ready to clean the cities and the country,” he added.
The campaign National Project Coordinator informed Liberia’s foreign friends that he and others hope to keep and sustain the cleanup initiative as a civic-based operation and so he would be coming back to them (bilateral partners).
Representing Aunty Miatta Fahnbulleh, Chair of the Inauguration Committee, Mr. Saah N’tow said Ms. Fahnbulleh would have said “What a way to launch the inauguration activities of the President-elect that Liberians would come together and do things for ourselves.” He further stated that for too long it seems that Liberians had been outsourcing the cleaning of their environments to strangers.
“Thanks to the JNB/JKK crews, no more we are going to outsource the cleaning of our own cities and towns. We will join together in nooks and crannies in the country to clean up,” N’tow said.
The JNB/JKK Inauguration Volunteers Cleanup Campaign was officially launched on November 30th, 2023 by the then President-elect, H.E. Joseph Nyuma Boakai, President of the Republic of Liberia.
