Liberia is emerging from a long civil war, leaving many thousands of children locked in poverty, malnutrition, basic health needs and lack of education. PLAN has worked in Liberia since 1997, and is able to place a few of the orphaned children for adoption. Yet, the children who remain in Liberia desperately need our help as well, and we are committed to helping them---they are the future of Liberia! It is all about helping the children of Liberia, whether the few through adoption or the many that remain there. PLAN is dedicated to giving them all the gift of hope.
Although the needs of the children of Liberia are varied and great, PLAN made the decision to focus their efforts on education and a feeding program; if they are not educated, their future is bleak and more immediately, if they are hungry, they cannot learn. For these reasons, PLAN turned to originating a school and to feeding the children one meal a day, six days a week. For many of these children, it is their only nourishing meal for the day and on the seventh day, when we do not provide a meal, many of them go hungry until school starts again the following Monday.
In May of 2007, PLAN was led to a young Liberian man named Saah Joseph to a refugee area called Mount Barclay, located a few miles outside the Liberian capital of Monrovia. Mount Barclay, with nearly 15,000 residents situated in more than 28 small tribal and family sub villages, has more than 1500 school-age children. Most of these children had never been to school, because there was no school, nor could any of the families afford to send their children to any of the numerous private schools in and around Monrovia. A local family had donated the land on which these refugees lived. But, although the task seemed overwhelming, PLAN assisted in starting a school and feeding program---it has been proudly named Mount Barclay Christian School.
