Gardnersville, Montserrado — Harriet Mulbah’s eyes brighten as she describes her dream of becoming a nurse. Until no longer too long in the past, that dream regarded inconceivable for the thirteen-365 days-light who spent her days guiding her blind mother thru Monrovia’s crowded streets, begging for money instead of attending college.
But now that dream has a shot at becoming reality. In March 2025 Harriet entered the 2nd grade here in this community on the outskirts of the capital with attend from the Liberian authorities and companions. It be the first step in an ambitious notion to bring together the without warning growing number of adolescents living in Liberia’s streets into college.
“When I used to see my friends in school, I used to feel bad, because I was not in school,” Harriet says in an interview on her campus at the Excellent Grace Mission College.
Harriet is amongst the adolescents now receiving formal schooling as segment of the “Support A Child, Save The Future” project, launched in August 2024, to address what officials described as a staggering disaster: extra than 366,584 Liberian adolescents living in “street situations.” A Front Page Africa/Recent Narratives story stumbled on many of the adolescents were forced into drug spend and prostitution and had given birth to infants who also lived on the streets.
Harriet represents a shrimp victory, but it absolutely is gathered clouded with uncertainty. She is enrolled but attends classes with no correct uniform because “the people have not given us a uniform yet.” Nearly eight months into the program there are other signs the project’s outcomes will seemingly be smaller than planned.
The project’s manner involves a pair of interventions. Some adolescents are temporarily housed in transit facilities while social workers search for families. For those with identified caregivers, the program offers financial purple meat up – approximately $US500 per family. Of this amount, $US350 is earmarked to attend the family produce a shrimp business and the remainder is for college enrollment costs. Parents must save agreements promising to sustain their adolescents in college and off the streets.
Partner organizations be pleased Boulevard Child, a UK-primarily based group, present smaller grants–$US90 for households with one child or $US125 for those with a pair of adolescents–alongside with business training.
“We pay all their fees, we buy them books, we provide them backpacks, we provide them uniforms, we provide them shoes,” says Andrew G. Tehmeh, country director of Boulevard Child. “There’s not a single fee that is left, uniform, ID card, everything.”
Boulevard Child has committed to enrolling 50,000 adolescents over the next five to six years, targeting about 10,000 every year. Tehmeh says they fill already supported extra than 1200 adolescents in Monrovia and Kakata. (An earlier free up from the Ministry of Gender acknowledged, “702 former street children enrolled in 19 public schools during the first semester of 2024/2025.”)
“Our motto is that as we put them in school and deal with the first set and give livelihood support in the form of small business grants to their parents, then we move on to another set,” Tehmeh says. “We don’t stay with one set forever.”
At the Excellent Grace College, Joel Johnson, 16, is another beneficiary. He looks weary after a protracted day of college. He also has no uniform. His nicely-archaic clothes are dirty, and he has no shoes. Unexcited he is jubilant to be here. Before joining the program he spent his days guiding his blind father thru Monrovia’s streets, begging for money.
“When I don’t carry my pa in the street to go hustle, we can’t eat,” he acknowledged. Joel wishes to be a doctor at some point. “I want the government to keep me in school to graduate and do good things for my parents.”
Cuts to International Funding Forged Cloud Over Project
The five-365 days project has somewhat modest targets. It seeks to permanently take away 73,317 adolescents from the streets–finest about 20 percent of the identified inhabitants–at an estimated fee of $US15 million for correct the first two phases. But the authorities has committed finest $500,000 in the current fiscal budget after providing $300,000 when the program launched mid-365 days in 2024.
This leaves the program closely dependent on international donors at precisely the 2nd when many are reducing their commitments to Liberia. The United States, European Union, and Sweden–Liberia’s biggest donors–fill all slash purple meat up.
“Major donor funding cuts and limited government resources are part of the problem,” says Amara Sylvestrees Johnson, coordinator for the Nationwide Younger other folks’s Project. “GiveDirectly (a UK-based charity) is one of the government’s partners helping to take the children off the street. The organization is experiencing its share of USAID’s suspension.”
GiveDirectly govt director Joseph Yarsiah declined a number of requests for comments, directing all inquiries to the authorities.
Boulevard Kid’s future funding is also below a cloud. The group receives most of its funding from United Kingdom sources, including matching funds from the UK authorities. But the UK authorities has also announced plans to slash its attend budget by about 25 percent.
“The British government has announced a 2.5 percent increase in the defense budget coming from the charity budget, so that is going to affect us eventually,” says Tehmeh.
Gender Minister Gbeme Horace Kollie has tried to rally extra purple meat up from companions.
“A lot of people want to support, but they want to see how much interest the government has and what it is they can put into this,” Kollie acknowledged at a current event celebrating the halfway save of the program’s first half. The authorities and companions are hoping this display of commitment will incentivize donors.
Roots in Rural Poverty
Harriet and Joel are on the first steps of a protracted scurry. Specialists train solving the exclaim of adolescents living in the streets is complex. Paying colleges bills is finest one segment of a elaborate internet of social challenges. Multidimensional poverty, particularly in rural areas, is a main driver. World Financial institution information exhibits that while three out of ten other folks in Monrovia are living in poverty, the fee soars to eight out of ten in rural regions.
At Hope In God Association of the Blind, a 16-bedroom facility here in Gardnersville, Johnson K. Dorbor, a resident, has struggled to construct for his four adolescents. He is one of 24 visually impaired residents here and 42 adolescents. He is jubilant his adolescents are in reality in the program.
“My children out of school, it brings shame to me,” Dorbor says. “It makes me feel somehow different in the society, when it comes to that matter, by seeing other children going to school and my children sent home for school fees, it means that I am not man enough.”
For families be pleased Dorbor’s, the program represents a rare opportunity in a country the save extra than half of the inhabitants lives in poverty and opportunities are few. But Dorbor and tons oldsters in the program are gathered waiting for the promised business grant that would possibly maybe well attend sustain his family while keeping his adolescents in college.
“We are hearing about it, and they are telling us that pretty soon they will start with it, so we hope to see that coming,” Dorbor says.
Segment Two to Address Rural Factors Driving Younger other folks to the Streets
As the program enters its next half, it plans to maintain the factors that power rural kid’s migration to the streets by strengthening community welfare councils – committees situation as much as glimpse at kid’s rights and violations at the community level.
“The reason why kids are coming to the urban area, they are in search of education and a better livelihood,” Tehmeh says. “If we can create better livelihood education for them where they are, there will be no reason to come to urban areas.”
Building resilience to native weather trade will also be key. Changing weather patterns fill devastated subsistence farming, saved adolescents out of college and sprint migration to cities.
Tehmeh offers one instance: “There’s a school we call Madiana in Montoni, Grand Cape Mount county. We built that school. During the rainy season, kids will not come from the villages to go there because the water will be full, and they won’t be able to go to school.”
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Felony guidelines With out Enforcement
Laws enforcement is another segment of the exclaim. Specialists warn without that portion of the puzzle the project will seemingly be as ruin of time.
“Liberia has some of the best laws and policies that protect children. But the implementation has been the greatest challenge,” says Keifala Kromah, chairperson for the Child Protection Network of Liberia, a coalition of organizations working to give protection to adolescents. He notes that many adolescents are brought from rural communities to cities without following the correct procedures outlined in foster care guidelines.
“Most of the children said their parents gave them to those people to come to Monrovia to go to school,” Kromah says. “But what happened? They ended up on the street.”
Assistant Labor Minister Emmanuel K. Barnes has pledged to prosecute other folks who return adolescents to child labor after they’ve been enrolled in college, but enforcement mechanisms remain unclear.
“In the absence of the implementation of the law, the project is not sustainable, says Kormah. “The very adolescents we are taking from the road will explore extra of them coming motivate to the road.”
Regardless of these challenges, Amara Sylvestrees Johnson, the project coordinator, maintains an optimistic outlook.
“We are very convinced that we’re going to succeed on this project, and I think it is a legacy project for West Africa.”
For adolescents be pleased Harriet and Joel, the stakes couldn’t be increased.
“I don’t want to go back on the street,” says Joel as he begins his homework.
But as international attend priorities shift, and native weather trade and financial turmoil intensify, Liberia’s skill to give protection to its most weak adolescents is in doubt. For now, Harriet and Joel are going to varsity, their wishes in the arms of leaders in Monrovia and world capitals.
This story used to be a collaboration with Recent Narratives as segment of the Investigating Liberia Project. Funding used to be offered by the Swedish Embassy in Liberia. The funder had no train in the story’s protest.
