By: Taisiah K. Merfee
The Angie Brooks International Center (ABIC) for Women’s Empowerment, Leadership Development, International Peace and Security has provided support comprising of empowerment packages to six underprivileged youth groups to better their lives.
The program was held Friday, November 11, 2022 in the Township of West Point Town, under the project ‘Slum Peacepreneurs Hubs’ – Sustainable Organized Crime and Youth Gang Violence in Liberia’s Slum Communities, with support from Global Initiative, and Resilience Fund.
The Township of West Point, Bentol City, Caldwell, New Georgia, Clara Town, and Old Road are the communities selected for the packages. West Point and Caldwell are the two communities that have received their packages and it is expected that the other four communities will receive their part of the available packages in the coming days.
The Township of West Point and Caldwell each received US$5,000 worth of equipment, including truck-tricycle, as the youth of Caldwell will be engaged into garbage collection and fumigation, while the youth of West Point will be engaged into garbage collection and recycling.
Also, New Georgia youth will be involved with supplying of safe drinking water, while Bentol City will be involved with soap production. Clara Town also will be involved into public latrine while Old road will be involved with salon and barber shop.
It may be recalled last year ABIC trained and certificated 90 (ninety) disadvantaged youth in entrepreneurship, of which 15 people were selected from each slum community, to include West Point, Caldwell, New Georgia Bentol City, Clara Town, and Old Road, who were selected from the midst of more than 250 disadvantaged youths from across 12 slum communities in rural and urban Montserrado County, were selected for the program, with each of the six selected communities awarded five thousand United States (5,000) dollars seed funding for entrepreneurship.
In her welcoming remarks, the head of programmes at ABIC, Gifty Mensah told the youth that their Article of Incorporation and business registration are in order to enable them operate as legal entities.
“You have the support of ABIC anytime you face challenges. This is not the end of our engagement with you. We are going to elections and we are going to be working with you all”, she said.
Moreover, she revealed plan to take the youth to parts of Africa, beginning with Uganda so that they can tell their story to youth on that part of the continent to inspired the youth there.
For Bentol City according to Ms. Mensah, Cllr. Chesson-Wureh has decided to sponsor some of the youth to go to soap factory to do soap making so as soon as she gets the approval they are going to be making their own soap, Ms. Mensah added.
Making the presentation, the Establishment Coordinator of ABIC Cllr. Yvette Chesson-Wureh encouraged the youth to do more as she motivated them to make use of the opportunity and make sure they succeed, when she turned over two truck tricycles with documents including business registration to West point and Caldwell communities to kick start their businesses.
“We want you to go out and work because the example that you are setting is not only for Liberia. I want you to make the best use of this opportunity and once that is done you will rise and make it”, Cllr. Chesson-Wureh encouraged the youth and further told them not to let anything stand in their way of progress.
“Your go do it to make us pride. The vision I have for you children’s is great. We will make it happen. So thank you on behalf of Angie Brooks we want to present to you the equipment as promised under our project, starting with the first US$5,000 equipment including the tricycle,” as she presented the keys to West Point and Caldwell group managers.
On this part, the Chief Investigator in the office of the Commissioner of West Point Community, Isaac T. Roberts thanked ABIC and partners for what he referred to as a unique exercise and said the community embraces it and will give it the fullest support because it will make a great impact not just for the youth but for the entire community.
He urged the youth to use the equipment for the intended purpose to show to their communities that they have brave the storm of the challenges and they are contributing to the development of their own lives and to their communities by extension and make ABIC and their partners proud.
Also for their part in separate remarks, the group managers, Samuel Treh of New Georgia, Alfred M. Kollie of Caldwell, Jesse Doe of West Point, and Precious Wilson expressed gratitude to ABIC and partners for the support and making their dream to come to reality. They vowed to make sure to take seizure of the opportunity to change their story for the better and set a very good example to inspire others.
