ACT Situation Report

Liberia 0204

A year after war in Liberia, ACT members continue response to ongoing needs

Information provided by Alascal Y. Wisner, coordinator, Liberia Council of Churches

Geneva, September 3, 2004—Just on a year ago, on August 18, 2003, Liberians found themselves wakening from the nightmare of civil war - one that would cost the lives of many, see tens of thousands of people displaced during months of conflict, and leave the country of Liberia broken.

Today, people continue to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives after 14 years of sporadic civil conflicts that culminated in the months-long civil war that ended in August of last year. Members of the global alliance of churches and their related agencies, Action by Churches Together (ACT) International, known as the ACT Liberia Network, have themselves been helping people regain some semblance of normality throughout the last twelve months. Supported by members of ACT International around the world, they have been implementing various programs under the revised AFLR41 appeal.

Lutheran Church in Liberia: Friday, August 27 was the beginning of several projects. The Lutheran Church in Liberia (LCL) has prioritized its Food for Work program in Bong and Lofa counties, enabling local residents in cleaning up towns and surrounding areas for the proposed resettlement programs. Earlier this month, LCL sent an assessment team to the two counties, with team members visiting Totota, Gbartala Gbarnga, Bellifinia and Gbalatuah in Bong county, and Beyan Town, Gorlue, Salayea, Zorzor, Fissebu and Konia in Lofa county.

In each town, a local management team was set up, comprising the town chief, a leader representing women, men and youth, as well as one other prominent person in the town. The teams' task will be to mobilize people and supervise the work. Hand-in-hand with the work that started August 27 is a distribution of rice and salt to people involved in the clean-up activities. Next on the list for similar assessments on August 27 were Bomi and Gbarpolu Counties.

Curran Hospital's mobile clinic has been very active in providing health care delivery to the people. Demands for health services are overwhelming in Zorzor and its surroundings. At present, cases are being referred to the clinic from neighboring Guinea. The clinic is in full operation and was the first activity to be implemented under the current appeal.

Concerned Christian Community (CCC): A recent consignment of food items (7,219 bags of flour; 1,280 bags of lentils/beans; 750 cartoons of oil; 230 bags of sugar; and 1,541 bags of wheat soy blend) will be distributed to 8,050 people. Beneficiaries include new arrivals in camps for displaced persons, vulnerable groups that qualify for supplementary feeding programs and children between the ages of 6 months and 18 months. The food items were a contribution by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank through the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC).

Working in partnership with ACT member CHAL (Christian Health Association of Liberia), CCC completed nutritional surveys as one of its pre-distribution activities. CCC's women and children services (WACS) are engaged in psycho-social services in eight camps for displaced people in Montserrado, Bong and Grand Bassa counties. Activities are: trauma counseling, limited material assistance (clothing and footwear), complementary medical assistance and skills training of women in tie-dyeing, tailoring, bakery, soap and grease making, and hair dressing. CCC is currently preparing to graduate more than 2,000 trained women in all eight camps. Forty-four volunteers work in this program.

CCC also manages the IDP (internally displaced persons) camps of Sawegbeh and Perry Town in Montserrado county and the returnee camps of Perry Ways Station (Montserrado), E.J. Yancy (Bong County) and Buchanan Transit Camp (Grand Bassa County).

All agricultural activities were suspended during last year's fighting. CCC is, however, planning to restart its farming station at Klay, midway between Monrovia and Tubmanburg. Rehabilitation of tree-crop plantations, lowland rice farming, vegetable cultivation and animal husbandry will be the major farming activities.

The Christian Health Association of Liberia (CHAL): CHAL lists several concerns related to the ongoing challenges in the humanitarian situation in Liberia and the subsequent impact on the health of the population, both medically and psychologically.

Even though Liberians today enjoy relative peace, serious concerns for people's safety and security still exist in parts of the country. Although reports of large numbers of former fighters being disarmed and demobilized are encouraging, concerns have been expressed that vast numbers of firearms and weaponry have not been turned in and are being kept hidden. The official figure for disarmament is put at about 60,000 (by August 15, 2004), as reported by the U.N. peacekeeping force, UNMIL.

Reports received from Grand Kru County, the southeastern region of Liberia, indicate that people are still being harassed and intimidated in the absence of UNMIL, who have not been deployed in this area. People in this region are forced to pay taxes to support the rebel group still operating in this region. People who cannot pay these so-called taxes are beaten and chased out of their own communities. As a result, more people in Grand Kru County have sought shelter and are living in the bush.

Troubling reports of the ongoing sexual abuse of young girls (some as young as 9 years old) in Ganta and Nimba Counties is cause for concern, reports CHAL.

People who fled Lofa County at the height of the war continue to be scattered around Liberia, unable to return home, as a result of lingering insecurity in their region. Although the UNMIL peacekeepers have secured parts of Lofa County, areas still remain unsafe.

CHAL reports that all of these challenges pose their own health-related (medical and psychosocial) problems in the 15 counties of Liberia. People in Liberia are still traumatized by the war.

United Methodist Church (UMC): The implementation of programs and projects under the appeal aimed at restoring a semblance of normalcy to the lives of the war-affected people of Liberia (IDPs, refugees, ex-combatants, and other vulnerable groups) through the rehabilitation of service institutions operated by UMC has started. The following has been achieved to date:

The re-opening of UMC mission stations. Three of four UMC mission stations scheduled for rehabilitation are now in operation. The rehabilitation of the various service institutions at these stations has begun, and service institutions operated there before the civil crisis are in operation. These include:

Ganta United Methodist School at Ganta Mission Primary and Senior High School. The school has re-opened in alternative buildings and has an enrolment of 450 students. Over 80 percent of administrative and faculty members have returned, and the main school building is now under reconstruction. (The funds were provided by Operation Classroom, a UMC partner in the U.S.)

Ganta Hospital at Ganta Mission offers health care, delivery and primary health education. The rehabilitation of the hospital facilities started in January 2004 and was re-reopened in April 2004 as a health center. Although the process of rehabilitation is still in progress, the patient load of the health center has more than doubled from 65 patients in May to 135 in July 2004.

William V.S. Tubman Gray High School at Gbargna Mission offers primary to senior high education. The school has had minor touch-ups, although much work needs to be done. It is now in full operation with an enrolment of 375 students. 75 percent of both administrative and instructional staff has returned.

E.J. Yancy United Methodist School at Camphor Mission offers primary to junior high education. All of the buildings at Camphor Mission (school, dormitories, clinic, staff quarters and clinic) have been fully rehabilitated. The school has an enrolment of 300 students, and all staff members have returned. The building facilities will be opened to students in September for the 2004/2205 school year.

Additionally, all UMC schools in Monrovia, Buchanan, Kakata and Harper have been reopened and are in operation. The reopening and operation of the UMC schools, clinics and churches have made a significant impact on the ongoing peace process. Thousands of IDPs and refugees are returning home on a voluntarily basis.

Lutheran World Federation World Service (LWF): LWF continues to provide camp management for more than 50,000 displaced people in Jahtondo and Salala Camps. Having run low on funds at the end of June, emergency activities were constrained. Activities planned for implementation for the remainder of this year include repair of severely damaged shelters for vulnerable displaced families; training of trainers for IDPs returning to their homes of origin in the areas of HIV/AIDS awareness and education, prevention of sexual and gender-based violence, and the prevention of female exploitation and of children. Additionally, water and sanitation and the construction of basic shelter units for vulnerable people will be a priority in the areas to which IDPs will return.

Young Men's Christian Association Liberia (YMCA): The YMCA emergency response is currently active in four counties: Montserrado, Grand Gedeh, Margibi and Nimba. The main focus of activities has been the provision of emergency feeding support to vulnerable groups such as pregnant women, unaccompanied children, the elderly, IDP communities, refugees from Ivory Coast and Grand Guinea and third-country nationals (TCNs). Support to community activities includes initiatives such as agricultural revitalization, structural readjustment and rehabilitation, including road and bridge repairs. Many of the targeted beneficiaries had been cut off from the rest of the country during the recent conflict.

Psycho-social activities

YMCA is once again preparing psycho-social training at all of its program centers through the country including: Nimba County (Yekepa, Ganta, Saclepea and Sanniquellie), Bong County (Totota Maimu Displaced Camp), Margibi County (Kakata, and Unification Town), Buchanan and Monrovia. Monrovia’s centers are New Kru Town, Caldwell Somalia Drive, Paynesville and the YMCA national headquarters. Activities include play therapy, training sports and recreation, focus-group discussion and singing folk songs.

Under the ACT appeal and in partnership with the World Food Program (WFP), YMCA procured and distributed 65.5 metric tons of seed of rice and 2,500 pieces of cutlasses to 2,500 farmers in three districts in Nimba County. Each registered farmer was given 25 kg of seed rice in accordance with the policy guidelines of the Ministry of Agriculture and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. As a result, more than 3,500 hectares of land is currently being plowed by farmers under this project in Sanniquellie, Mah, and Gbelegeh Districts.

Adequately addressing peace building, reconciliation and psychosocial needs is a challenge for the immediate future. Funding for these crucial areas has been very limited.

UMCOR Liberia: Funding for the apprenticeship skills training, accelerated learning program and small-enterprise development for almost 1,500 ex-combatants in Montserrado County was made available. The VOA Cantonment Camp Management Project was extended to the end of August.

UMCOR is managing and coordinating activities of service providers at camps for ex-combatants and ensuring that facilities are functional in order to meet the needs of residents. A total of 18,451 ex-combatants have been demobilized in camps since the start of the project. In July, 5,514 ex-combatants were demobilized at VOA, all of which received NFIs, including blankets, jerry cans, plates, spoons, cups, mats, biscuits, hygiene kits for both men and women, slippers, used clothing and buckets. The recreation coordinator organized various indoor and outdoor sporting and recreational activities including football and volleyball. Kickball, Monopoly, Scrabble, checkers, Ludo, playing cards, TV viewing, movies and music listening are all part of the demobilization activities. Trauma counseling was conducted on topics such as trauma healing, substance abuse, stress management, personal development, career counseling, civic education, gender-based violence awareness and reproductive health.

At Soul Clinic IDP Camp, of the 464 families to be relocated, 319 were relocated in July. All efforts are being made to have the others transferred soon. A six-classroom school building for IDPs is under construction using mainly locally available materials. When completed, the school will have a capacity of 700. Coordinators have been carrying out sensitization and awareness raising on hygiene and sanitation in the camp. Partners rendering medical services did not report any major health problem at Soul Clinic during July. Due to the ongoing sensitization on hygiene and sanitation, incidents of malaria and diarrhea have reduced.

At Fendell camp, sensitization and awareness raising on sanitation and hygiene is also continuously being carried out. UMCOR has reinforced day and night patrols by groups of IDPs responsible for reporting on domestic violence and other forms of violent behavior. Incidents of malaria and diarrhea were reduced at Fendell to some extent in July.

ACT Liberia Network coordination: In an effort to coordinate the ACT Liberia Network activities, the LCC, as the lead agency in the network, has appointed a coordinator to work with the International Facilitator in coordinating and monitoring the activities of members/partners of the network and reporting to the ACT Coordinating Office in Geneva in consultation with the general secretary of the LCC, who is the chairman of the ACT Liberia Network. The LCC has ensured that a regular network meeting is held the last Friday of every month to discuss its activities. To better coordinate the network, the LCC has submitted a strategic plan to the ACT Coordinating Office and has submitted an appeal, which is intended to build the network’s logistical capacity to fully coordinate and monitor the work of the members/partners in the field.

Also in the LCC appeal is a series of workshops to increase coordination and awareness among the members/partners of the ACT Liberia Network. A financial management workshop will assist the members/partners in meeting and upholding financial management to ACT standards. A workshop on community-based psychosocial work will support the members/partners in keeping high standards in this area during post-war rehabilitation.

Overall funding situation: The implementation of the programs and projects scheduled under ACT Appeal AFLR-41 – Post-war Rehabilitation – with its aim to benefit 50,000 beneficiaries faces serious financial constraints, as the appeal has been very poorly funded. Only 13 percent of the total target has been received. The ACT Coordinating Office encourages members to contribute to the work of ACT members in Liberia.

For a financial update on ACT Appeal AFLR-41, visit www.act-intl.org/appeals/finance/finance_title.html. The latest report of August 25, 2004, contains information about this appeal.

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