LIBERIAN/BONG COUNTY & COMMUNITY NEWS

End of Phase1 June – December 2006/ Project mid-way report on the

“Self-help Road Construction and Communal farms in support of Community-based Development Initiatives”

Executive Summary

Upon election as senator for Bong County, my staff and I in partnership with the Bong Reconciliation committee facilitated a development meeting involving citizen groups and officials of the county. Participants analysed the social, economic and political situation of the county and articulated the development priorities for the county. They mandated us, newly elected officials and party leaders from the county, to lobby the national government first for positions that would enable the county to place its priorities on national government’s development agenda and then to work towards placing those priorities on government’s agenda through budgetary allocations.

Bong County got two Ministerial positions and heads of public corporations. Bong citizens were also appointed to several deputy and assistant ministerial positions. But when the national budget came before us, I soon realised that national government’s capacity to allocate for basic social services was extremely limited. I was constrained to begin responding to the request from various communities for support to development initiatives with my salary and other allowances. But this too was extremely limited.

Considering the high expectations people had of us newly elected, I travelled to Ireland in search of support. There I met with the Irish President and other top government officials. I met the chief executive officers of various Irish aid agencies and prominent businessmen. I encouraged continued Irish support to meeting the humanitarian and peacekeeping needs of Liberia and promoted private sector investment as a mutually beneficial way forward. In Ireland I met Anne Costello, sister of an Irish businessman. She assisted me to get from him a donation of fifty thousand (Euro 50 000) for the self-help roads and communal farms in support of community based-development initiatives.

Back home, my community development team conducted assessment in 50 communities in Bong County and selected 25 communities and 5 community-based groups that had initiated self-help development activities. We established partnership with them, providing tools and some rice to eat while working. We later provided seeds and technical support to the communal farms; 2 power-saws and other materials for log bridge construction; payment and feeding for power-saw operators and bridge construction technicians; 1 Mill for sugar cane farmers in Suakoko; 2 FM transmitters and accessories for two community radios; and building materials for several projects. We have completed 27 log bridges and 40 more bridges remain to be completed on the roads already earmarked. 3 water pumps were constructed and donations were made to several community schools and other projects. Trócaire and the Electricity supply Board of Ireland provided support for the construction of two women centres for WIPNET in Gbarnga and Kpaai women in Palala.

Background

Soon after my election as the junior senator for Bong County, I began working with the chairman of the Bong County Reconciliation Committee in partnership with the Development Education Network-Liberia (DEN-L) and the Search for Common Ground (SFCG) an international US Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) to organise a series of citizen meetings to formulate a development agenda for Bong County. The development team of my office worked with members of two of the largest women groups in Gbarnga - the Women in Peace Building Network (WIPNEP) and the Gbarnga Zonal Women. Together with facilitators from two other Bong County local NGOs - the Liberia Environmental Care organisation (LECO) and the Rural Youth Empowerment Foundation (REFOUND). We facilitated series of sessions over two days. Participants in the sessions included paramount chiefs, clan chiefs, District Commissioners, Women Group leaders, Bong Youth Association and other youth group leaders, National teachers Association, Liberia Marketing Association (LMA) and other civil society groups.

Participants analysed the shape of the social, economic and political situation in Bong County and articulated the development priorities of the county. Top of the development problems identified and analysed were bad leadership, bad roads and other damaged infrastructure (school building and clinics), poor education system (shortage of trained teachers, limited scholarships for poor students, inadequate and irregular payment of teachers salary, etc), poor health system (shortage of nurses, inadequate supply of drugs, etc), lack of public supply of electricity and safe drinking water, etc.

Bad governance was identified as the crosscutting issue to be addressed for the Peace and reconciliation efforts to be successful and sustainable. Next on the list of priorities were road construction/ road rehabilitation to enhance rural development, revitalisation of the education system with emphasis on training more teachers and paying the teachers in the classroom adequately and regularly, support to agriculture revitalisation, rehabilitation of the health system, etc.

The citizens meeting mandated us, newly elected officials and party leaders from the county, to lobby for positions within government that would enable us to put the county’s priorities firmly on the national government’s list of priorities. But during the discussions on the National Budget in the Legislature, it became clear to me that funds available to government were extremely limited and that:

(1) Our newly elected parliament was foremost concern with getting adequate allocation for itself even if it meant cutting back on allocations to basic social services. [This led to clashes with the executive branch of government climaxed with the jailing of two ministers and threats to impeach the Supreme Court bench after it released the jailed ministers. I felt strongly that I had to take a stand to discourage my colleagues from following that slippery slop of confrontation.

(2) Our national government’s capacity to deliver basic social services was not going to match the extremely high expectations of the electorate. Our first half-year national budget was around 90 million. Phebe Hospital, the only referral hospital catering to three counties had an allocation of 200 000 whereas its yearly budget in the 80s was 2 million. Other senators who argued that their county health systems needed equal share of the health budget considered this allocation to Phebe too generous. Some of these systems were being run by NGOs and others did not cater to even a quarter of the population Phebe was catering to. I had to look outside Liberia for assistance to be able to deliver within my county while we fight with other lawmakers for the allocations for institutions within our various counties.

My trip to Ireland in May 2006 afforded me the opportunity to meet with top government officials, including President Mary McAlease, Minster of Overseas Development Connor Lenihan, some key officials of the Irish government’s Department of Foreign Affairs, and Ireland’s Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs. I also had the opportunity to meet with the Archbishop of the Catholic Church of Ireland and the Chief Executive Officers of various Irish Aid Agencies including Trócaire, Gorta, Concern, Oxfam, and Electricity Supply Board of Ireland among others. I met with some top Irish businessmen too. In these meetings, my message was basically, ‘thank you for your humanitarian and peacekeeping support to our people and country over the years, especially in our most difficult crisis period. I wish to encourage the people and government of Ireland to continue to be in solidarity with us, the people and government of Liberia; to increase humanitarian aid to us; to place us on Ireland’s list of priority countries; and to encourage the Irish government to keep Irish troupes in the UN mission to the end of the mission.’ In addition to humanitarian aid and peacekeepers I stressed the need to encourage the private sector in Ireland to invest in Liberia, particularly in Bong County’s agricultural sector.

A lady who heard about me from one of the meetings Sr. Miriam Therese O’ Brien (SSL) and Professor Anastasia Crickerly organised on my behalf informed me that her brother was interested in donating to charity in Africa and would be particularly interested in the agriculture sector or any other sector that would produce tangible results. I submitted to her a proposal for “Self-Help Road Construction and Communal Farms in Support of Community-Based Development Initiatives.”

Assessment

The project activities began with assessment in June 2006. My Community Development team visited 50 communities in search of communities that were initiating development activities to improve their own living conditions. The team conducted semi-structured and group interviews to find out how organised these communities were in carrying out their development activities. The questions focused on the level of participation of stake holders/ representatives of various village institutions in the decision making process. Our primary interest was road construction, swamp rice production and beans cultivation to feed the workers during community development activities. Twenty-five communities and five groups/ schools were selected for support.

Road Construction

Janyea, Dorwuta, Quoyakulai, Kpelehtaye-ta, Gbarnay, Kpoloyala, Yeadiwuan, Bernenta, Wumen, Gbanjue, Shiankpuwai, Donota, Nenta, Popota, Hendii, Bong Mines, and Gbarnay-Jorpolu are the towns we assisted with tools and food to eat when working on their self-help road projects.

Janyea: immediately after completion of the bridges on Janyea Road, a Medical NGO visited Janyea clinic to deliver long awaited supply of drugs, although very limited. This clinic serves a clan with a population of around five thousand or more. Trucks are now able to go in and bring out farm products. Farmers, especially children no longer have to carry produce over long distance to sell in the weekly market. It made easier our visit to hold development meetings with towns and villages from all over the clan. This has encouraged other villages in the area to initiate self-help road projects. It has encouraged the people to revitalise the community work culture within the area. Two bridges (approximately 20 ft long) were constructed.

Gbarnay/ Kpoloyala: Gbarnay and Kpoloyala do their self-help projects jointly. Senate 16, our car, was the first vehicle to use the road upon completion. Hundreds jubilantly welcome the senator. Many old people rejoiced to be alive when the first car entered Gbarnay. But conflict nearly erupted with the road project completed. The Gbarnay young men swore they would not allow villagers from Kaota, a village behind Gbarnay, to use vehicles on the newly constructed road. Kaota youths had laughed at the young men of Gbarnay whenever they saw them working on the road project using hand tools. Kaota young men had mocked that it is the duty of government to construct roads and that it was not possible for Gbarnay to complete the road and bridges using the type of tools they were using (cutlasses, axes, hoes, shovels, diggers, pin axes, wheel barrow and files). We encouraged the Gbarnay young men to forgive the Kaota young men and invite them to participate in the community school construction project. The road made it easier for us to hold the development meeting with several villages in Gbarnay.

The development meeting brought together community leaders (representatives of village institutions) from several villages within the clan and allowing other interested members of the communities participating in the self-help road construction project to participate. Trucks now make the weekly trip to Gbarnay bringing market women from Monrovia and other large towns to collect farm produce to be carried to Monrovia and other large towns. The people no longer have to carry heavy loads of rice, oranges, plantain, bananas, etc over the 16-kilometre distance to Suakoko. 10 bridges (approximately 10 – 15 ft long) and two bridges (approximately 30 ft long) were constructed on this road. It is now possible for NGOs to move in to work on water projects and other basic services. The people are presently cultivating swamp rice to provide food for their community workers. They plan to sell some of the timber from their forest to construct a community school.

Wuumen: four bridges were constructed on this road. Soon after its completion, Save the Children reportedly visited Wumen to conduct assessment. But the youth leader of Baila and the town chief of Baila objected to the Wuumen road connecting to their town, the only outlet town on the main road. They tried to stop our team from completing the bridges near their town. I sent for the two men and held meeting with them in the office of the development superintendent. Both the development superintendent and I reminded them that no one village had the right to stop development projects such as motor road from passing through. Barely two weeks after the completion of the bridges, Cooper Liyean who led the bridge team died of slow poison. Land dispute is escalating in the clan between Wumen and surrounding villages. We have started to gather information that will assist us to intervene.

Others self-help roads: three bridges were completed on the Gbanjue road. Bridges on the Quoyakulai and Sheinkpuwai roads are still under construction. We had to suspend work till after the Christmas celebrations and to enable the sawyers to do some sawing for the Gbarnay community School project and the WIPNET Women leadership Training Centre in Gbarnga. Construction of bridges on the Gbarnay-Jorpolu, Kwarta, Donota and Nenta Roads has not yet commenced. Assessment of these roads and few other self-help roads will be done in the first quarter of 2007. The European Union has contracted local implementing partners to construct more durable concrete bridges on the Worla- Bernenta-Yeadiwuan Road. EC has also contracted implementing partners to construct bridges on the Kokoya road, especially a major bridge that has hindered the flow of vehicle traffic for over a year.

Swamp rice production

Samay, Nai, Sengbeta, Togbata, Doeta, Quoikaporta and Kapita were the villages selected for swamp rice production. Later, other villages got involve with swamp rice production in order to forge longer-term partnership with our team. These included Kpelehtaye-ta, Yeadiwuan, Bernenta, Gbarnay, and Kpoloyala.

Samay: Samay has a community-based organisation known as the Samay Development Organisation (SADEOR). Some sons and daughters of Samay living in Gbarnga founded SADEOR in 2000 in Gbarnga. Its first project was the erection of a monument in memory of Samay citizens who died during the civil crisis, especially those who were massacred in the town in 1994 when LPC and later NPFL forces captured the town. 10 SADEOR members participated in Development Education and Leadership teams-in-Action (DELTA) training with the Development Education Network-Liberia and a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) training workshop. They conducted PRA with the villagers in 2003. Development activities initiated as a result of the PRA included town cleaning, communal pit latrine construction, communal well rehabilitation and hand pump construction to provide safe drinking water and improve the health of residents. SADEOR established a mini FM radio station and an adult literacy program.

SADEOR has cultivated 30 plots. The swamp rice production project aims to raise money to enable SADEOR maintain its radio station, continue its adult literacy project and support its schools. Samay has a clinic constructed through self-help before the war started. Medicine Du Monde has expanded this clinic and is providing essential drugs. Samay had a government school and a Baptist school catering to Samay children and children from neighbouring villages.

Hand pumps construction

Two more hand pumps were purchased for Gbaota but were not installed because we got to know that an NGO had earmarked Gbaota for hand pump construction. An old hand pump was repaired in Gbaota. As the road construction in Kokoya progressed, AICF assisted with the construction of bridges and moved in with hand pump construction Kpeleh-taye-ta, Doeta and other towns we had earmarked in Kokoya for hand pumps. We have now earmarked Gbarnay, Bernenta and Kpoloyala for the construction of hand pumps. These are remote villages we have established partnership with. They still get drinking water from creeks and open wells in swamps.

Others villages/ groups / Projects

Other villages, groups and projects that got support from us included Worla Sugar Cane farmers, E J Yancy High School in Totota, Totota Community Radio (transmitter and other accessories), Radio Lee-see-aye (transmitter and other accessories), Nai women, Yopea Cultural Dance Troupe, WIPNEP women in Gbarnga and the Kpaai District Women Development Association

Worla Sugar cane Farmers: we purchased a sugar cane mill for Sugar Cane farmers the Worla area to share with sugar cane farmers in the Yeadiwuan area. The farmers will pay an amount they will agree among themselves for any amount of liquor produced at the mill until they complete payment of six thousand five hundred US dollars (US$6 500) used to purchase the mill and its accessories. This money will then be used to construct a community school in Worla or one of the villages participating. It was agreed that a sugar cane farm be cultivated specifically for the development activities of the area and that other farmers who do not want to participate in the cultivation and production of liquor be encourage to cultivate other food crops. Production has started.

Totota Community Radio and E. J. Yancy High School: Totota is one of the most populated towns in lower Bong County. We purchase a mini FM transmitter for the community radio set up by some young people during the election campaign. It was a locally built transmitter. We did not buy tools and food for them to cultivate swamp rice. Instead we bought tools for the E. J. Yancy School to revitalise its agriculture department. We selected the radio project for support in Lower Bong because it will disseminate information widely on self-help development activities that are taking root in Upper Bong. It will prevent violent conflict by correcting rumours that often spark violence (tribal and political). It is used as a medium for popular education. Theatre groups and NGOs often air dramas on good governance, HIV/AIDS and other health and development issues. As well as providing entertainment, music on airwave contributes to healing the wounds of war. Identifying with this radio that serves most of lower Bong has sent a message to the people of lower Bong that I have the well being of even people that did not vote for me in my heart and in my thoughts. Reaching out to those who did not support my election as well as those who did contributes to peace and reconciliation in the county.

WIPNET and Kpaai women: the WIPNET Women Leadership Training Centre construction started with funds we contributed. With funds from other sources, the WIPNET country office in Monrovia provided funds for the construction of a palaver hut. WIPNET Gbarnga conducts adult literacy sessions for women in Gbarnga. Concern Worldwide through DEN-L provided tables, chairs and some learning materials for the literacy and skill training sessions. The Kpaai District Women Development Association holds monthly meetings in selected towns to induct into office a team of women leaders for the selected town. We were only able to attend three meetings this year. We had difficulty getting transport to remote areas prior to our taking a loan from the bank to purchase a four-wheel car. During the induction ceremony, the women usually conduct a rally and make contributions to collect some money for the new women’s leadership team to use as operation budget. We also provide four bags of cement to complete the WIPNET palaver hut in Salala Bong County.

Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) workshops and Development meetings

Orientation workshops: We facilitated two ‘Introduction to Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)’ workshops for representatives of all the development committees with which we are in partnership to strengthen their capacity to work in a participatory way with members of their communities. In the workshops, we introduced the participants to some PRA tools and principles. The tools included introduction exercises and listening exercises designed to create conducive atmosphere for genuine sharing of ideas and experiences; and exercises for developing a learning event’s agenda in a participative way. We explained and created sessions to discuss the concepts and principles guiding the PRA methodology and then introduced the major tools used in any PRA fieldwork. We included:

§ The daily routine and seasonal calendar exercises to enable participants analyse the gender division of labour and discuss ways to share responsibilities to reduce the workload of the women;

§ The village history exercise to assist participants establish a common history of the village, highlighting events and practices to learn from;

§ The village institutions diagram assist villagers improve their understanding of all the existing village institutions in order to ensure their inclusion in the decision making process and the sharing of benefits of development;

§ The village mapping/ social mapping exercise to help participants understand the physical layout of family groups in order to assist them in organising community work and distributing thee benefits of development such as hand pumps and toilets in a way that one social group does not benefit more than others;

§ The problem identification and problem analysis exercises helps the participants to understand the interconnected next of problems affecting the village to be able to identify activities that address the problems from the roots; and

§ Community Action Planning to ensure that the process does not end with just talk but lead to action to improve the situation.

PRA field practise: We facilitated a one-week PRA workshop in Nai, involving forty Nai development committee representatives and six representatives each from the development committees of Gbarnay, Bernenta, Yeadiwuan and Bar-meni-taa. This workshop afforded my community development team the opportunity to practice the theory they had acquired in the PRA training sessions in the field in collaboration with the village development committee representatives we had orientated in the ‘Introduction to PRA workshops’. After the introduction exercises, listening exercises and agenda setting exercises, participants shared their experiences on previous development activities drawing out lessons on what helped and what hinder and discussing ways in which the factors that helped could be strengthened and the factors that hindered be reduced to enhance self-help development projects. We then went into discussions using all the PRA tools mentioned above. Using the problem ranking exercises, the main problems prioritised for the community action plans included road construction, access to basic primary education, access to safe drinking water, access to mid-wives and clinics, among others.

Participants expressed great satisfaction over the fact that for the first time in history, a senator took up a whole week discussing community problems and community action plans with community members; interacting with them at all levels and eating together the same food in the same place.

Development Meetings: We began facilitating one-day development meetings with our partner village development committees (village institution representatives), local government officials (chiefs and district commissioners), and leaders of community-based groups from other villages. The towns that hosted the development meetings included Gbarnay, Yeadiwuan, Samay, Janyea, Togbabli, Gbartala and Salala. In each of these towns, we brought together village institution representatives from at least four other communities.

Samay: in Samay, participants came from partner villages (Sengbeta and Duwaita) and also from surrounding villages including Gbeniquelleh, Bayata, and etc. The paramount chief, clan chiefs other chiefs and other local government officials attended and made remarks.

Janyea: in Janyea, participants came from partner villages (Dorwuta and Quoyakulai) and from other surrounding villages.

Togbata: in Togbata, participants came from partner villages (Doeta, Kpee-leh-taye-ta and quoikaporta) and other surrounding villages.

Salala and Gbartala: the reception in Salala and Gbartala were not as good as in Samay, Janyea and Togbata. We do not have strong contacts in these two districts. We have no on-going projects in the headquarters of these two districts and therefore relied only on the commissioners to spread the information. The participants were mainly school children who turned up in the hundreds. The commissioners of these two districts were strong National Patriotic Party (NPP) members and were reluctant assist our process.

In each meeting, we did introduction exercises to enable people know one another from other villages. Then we facilitated the listening role-play and buzz group discussions to draw out learning on how to make communication as good as possible in the workshop and in the self-help development activities since facilitating grassroots participation was our ultimate aim. The overview of the workshop sometimes began with the role-play known as the river code:

‘Two persons meet at a riverside and are nervous and afraid to cross. A third person comes and tries to encourage them. The first person insists on getting on the third person’s back. In the middle of the river, the third person is tired and puts the first person on the rock. He comes back to carry the second person. But the second person refuses to be carried. Instead he insists on holding the hand of the third person. He follows the third person closely stepping in his footpaths until they finally cross the river leaving the first person in the middle calling for help.’

The participants are usually quick to point out that a person who needs help must not become totally dependent on the person trying to help. I would then immediately pointed that this was the core of our message; we are establishing partnership with the communities that were initiating activities for their own development. Sometimes we used this role-play after the participants had identified and analysed their priority problems and agreed to a series of community action plans.

The development meetings usually include a review of past development projects, outlining the things that hindered and the things that helped, and discussing ways to strengthen the things that helped and reducing the things that hindered. Then in small groups, usually separating the men from the women, participants discuss their hopes and concerns about development in their area to prioritise their development concerns and articulate it for the total group. As I mentioned earlier, our response usually begins with the river code role-play and discussion and ended with the message of self-help as the way out for the county and country.

We also facilitated meetings with teachers in Palala for Kpaai and Panta School district, in Suakoko for the Suakoko schoolteachers and in Gbarnga for the teachers in Jorquelleh and Zota school districts. The teachers set up committees to lead work towards organising local election for the National teachers Association Bong branch.

The main problem is access to basic primary education especially for the rural poor. School building does not exist in most communities. Where buildings exist, there are no teachers. If you find teachers, they are barely literate themselves. Teachers are the least paid civil servants. Many teachers have left the classroom for better paying NGO jobs. The people you find in the classroom are mostly people waiting to find something better. They earn less then what they need to feed whole family with at least a dollar a day. Most of the teachers in the classroom are not on government payroll. They use the fees collected to pay themselves. They are referred to as volunteer teachers. Many teachers on the payroll are no longer in the classroom. Yet they continue to collect their salaries. To make matters worst, education authorities have names on the payroll of teachers that do not exist (ghost names). Consequently, Liberia’s literacy rate continues to be high. Parents from rural areas send their children with market women to live with them in the urban areas and go to school. But most of these children end up as sellers of oranges, plastic bags, etc between the cars on the streets of Monrovia. Most parents welcome the government’s pronouncement of free education. But the buildings, teachers and textbooks do not exist to implement this policy.

Participants argued that as long as teachers’ salary remain inadequate and irregular, trained teachers will continue to leave the classroom and new ones will not go into the training institutes when they do open. In-service training for those in the classroom is preferred. But this training has to include skills for conscientisation to unionise the teachers so that they are better able to organise and press their case for better working conditions.

Challenges

The project was very successful in many ways but we experienced a number of challenges from which we are drawing some lessons.

§ Many people were touched by the mere fact that an elected official can remember the villages and even return to hold meetings with the people in relation to development.

§ Assisting the villages that initiated self-help encouraged other villages to initiate self-help projects too.

§ Our meetings afforded us the opportunity to learn from the people and to use the information gathered in the field to argue in parliament on the issues in ways that the people wanted.

§ Some of the people who campaigned against us during election are now confessing regrets and we are opening our arms to them to bring them on board our development efforts.

§ In some areas the traditional leaders assisted in the mobilisation efforts, thus forcing even the reluctant men to turn up for work. The spirit of the rainforest was invited to be with the men during the heavy workdays.

§ In some areas, local government officials such as the District Commissioner (DC) in Suakoko assisted with mobilisation.

§ In some areas when the food we purchased got finished, the people contributed their own food.

§ Some people turn up for work on the bridges very late each morning and then left as soon as they ate the food. This made others who were working angry since they were constrained to find food later to complete the work.

§ Some of the people who participated actively are not happy that the rest of the village benefits from the project equally. For example, the roads are used by all including people who did not participate for a minute even.

§ Some of the people who were against us are still trying to undermine our efforts. In some villages, they succeeded in discouraging the people by convincing them that our support is too good to be true. They told the people that the senator is only using them to make his farm and he will come to collect the proceeds as previous government officials have always done with communal farms.

§ Some of the people working against us misinformed the people about the inputs we sent to the villages. They put the villagers under the impression that we had given money to pay people for the work but that the leaders of the project had misused the funds.

§ UN agencies and NGOs did not cooperate with the project because they consider doing so as supporting the political agenda of the senator.

§ More monitoring was required then anticipated because the method of swamp rice production we are encouraging is relatively new to this area. More technical assistance was required.

§ Communal farming has always been done using forced labour with the benefits going to government officials and so the idea of communal farm has a bad connotation for some people.

Next steps

Agriculture: to deal with the challenges to communal farming, we plan to focus more on supporting individual farmers who wish to cultivated swamp rice. We will purchase the seeds produced by each village and gave it to the individuals who participated in cultivating the communal farms to plant on their individual farms. Each village gets back what it produced. Each participating farmer, apart from the project to be undertaken with proceeds will get seeds (fast yielding and high yield seeds). We would like to assist a total of five hundred (500) households with the seeds, tools, food and technical support.

Organisational structure: we plan to bring representatives of the committees together to a one-week planning/ organisational development session to form an Association of Self-Help Development Initiatives (ASHDI) to deal with agencies like the World Food Programme (WFP) that provide food for work but would not support the ‘political agenda’ of a senator.

New communities: we would like to reach more communities, especially in the lower Bong area. A second round of assessment to select another twenty-five communities to support in whatever they are doing. More communities are now constructing community schools and mid-wife houses. Zinc, tools, food, etc.

Roads/ Bridges: we would like to complete the bridges on the roads already earmarked before doing the second round of assessment on new self-help roads. Forty-bridges remain on the roads already selected.

Education: another Irish Businessman, Paddy Mcguken, has contributed US$46 000 to assist with agricultural education and bridge construction. This has enabled us to establish partnership with four schools and to continue the bridge construction project into 2007. Other Irish families and individuals assisted me to pay schools fees for some students and to assist some vulnerable widows to complete their houses. We would like to focus more on teachers’ education in the second half of 2007. But we will prioritise strengthening our partnership with Gboveh.

[1] Tornorlah Varpilah, Chairman of the Bong County Reconciliation Committee is now the deputy Health Minister in the new Liberian government. Tornorlah was the coordinator for the West Africa Network for Peace Building (WANEP) Liberia when I served as director of DEN-L, a WANEP member organisation

[2] The Development Education Network-Liberia (DEN-L) is Bong County’s largest local Non-Government Organisation (NGO) supported mainly by Irish Aid Agencies and an umbrella group of Dutch agencies, Inter-Church Cooperation Organisation (ICCO). I served as DEN-L’s first director (January 2000 – April 1 2006)

[3] The Women in Peace Building Network (WIPNEP) is the women auxiliary of WANEP. Its Bong county branch actively promoted my candidacy

[4] See appendix 1 for more on this meeting

[5] See articles on web www.theperspective.org/articles/0624200602.html

[6] Lower Bong County gave Senator Taylor more votes than I. Her mother is a native of Lower Bong and her father is from another county. She made a lot of promises to build roads, clinics, etc. this made her the preferred candidate for the people of lower Bong.

[7] Palaver hut is a small round hut usually constructed in a village centre in front of the home of an important person. People usually gather in the palaver hut to settle palaver or conflict between members of the community, usually between husbands and wives or land disputes between/ among families.

[8] Salala is one of the highly populated towns in Bong where we did not do so well during the election. Out of approximately one thousand (1000) votes, we got around a hundred. The candidate who pulled most of the votes was a resident who did not win in any other area. Senator Taylor who became Bong County’s senator due to the loyalty of the people of Bong County to her husband came second in this town.