Overview
The civil war has ended, but Liberia is still on a long road of recovery. Seventeen percent of Liberia’s population is displaced, many fleeing to the capital, Monrovia, in search of safety and international aid. With an 85% unemployment rate, Monrovia offers little relief. The situation in the villages is just as bleak. Many returned to their homes only to find everything destroyed. World Hope International (WHI) is helping Liberians in the area of microfinance, rural development,and anti-trafficking to help them become self-sufficient once again.

Anti-Trafficking
WHI initiated a Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Prevention Program in Liberia in October of 2007. Funded by the U.S. Department of State, this program is implemented in partnership with fellow Faith Alliance Against Slavery and Trafficking (FAAST) members The Salvation Army World Service Office (SAWSO) and The Salvation Army (TSA) in Liberia. The TIP Program includes providing initial care for identified survivors of human trafficking, public awareness, and training and education for community groups, service providers and law enforcement. Having identified 25 vulnerable communities in seven counties throughout Liberia, the FAAST partners are educating and networking community groups, local law enforcement, and local service providers to provide comprehensive and appropriate care for survivors.

Highlights during 2007:

•Established a first response shelter that has the capacity to accommodate up to 12 victims of TIP.
•Educated more than 500 community leaders in Montserrado, Margibi, Grand Bassa, Bong County, and Grand Gedeh Counties.
•Established eight anti-trafficking community groups (Village Parent Groups) out of the anti-trafficking education.
•Village Parent Groups watch for suspicious activities, report cases, and educate their neighbors about trafficking.
•Reviewed and edited the Liberian National Police Academy’s TIP curriculum for new recruits.
•Developed guidelines and a timetable to implement a TIP curriculum in the Wesleyan School System.
•Conducted a Training of Trainers on Hands That Heal: International Curriculum to Train Caregivers of Trafficking Survivors for six WHI and FAAST staff from Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Rural Development
WHI defines rural development as any project that enables rural people to escape extreme poverty. Most rural people in developing countries routinely experience hunger and a high incidence of disease. WHI’s water and sanitation, agriculture, and animal husbandry programs give people the tools to have better health and food security. In Liberia, WHI conducts water and sanitation, seed loan, and animal husbandry programs.

Safe drinking water reduces disease and death. A sealed well and pump keeps the water clean and a drilled well keeps providing water through the dry season when many hand dug wells dry up. WHI drilled 39 wells and rehabilitated 7 wells in Liberia, providing safe water for 32,200 beneficiaries.

Seed loan programs help displaced people or people who have experienced crop failure due to drought, floods or pests. At harvest the seeds are repaid and used the next season to help other needy families. In 2007, 1,078 tool sets (hoes, axes, cutlasses) were distributed to communities. Seeds were loaned to 695 farmers affecting 4,517 farmers and their families.

WHI is helping with animal multiplication programs where selected recipients must pass offspring on to the next families in line. In this way, people are held accountable and experience the joy of helping others needier than themselves. However, not every rural person knows how to raise animals and so WHI staff regularly conducts animal husbandry training. Through these efforts the animals’ reproduction rate is increasing, creating more valuable assets for the very poor. In 2007, 288 sheep and 475 chickens were distributed, benefiting 4,959 people. Furthermore, 15 animal husbandry training sessions were conducted with 460 participants.

Education
WHI is concerned when children and youth have no opportunity to gain knowledge and practical skills. This tragedy occurs most often in remote rural areas where people are often illiterate and in some cases do not even know how to speak their own national language. They are cut off from economic activity and easily fall prey to unscrupulous middlemen and landowners.

In order to bolster education in Liberia, WHI completed four primary schools and gave support for six start-up schools. Additionally, Teacher Mentoring teams held a workshop in Liberia, providing opportunities for teachers to strengthen their educational knowledge. In the Hope for Children program, 175 students were
enrolled in 2007.

Microfinance
WHI initiated its microfinance activities in Liberia in 2005, with the provision of a large amount of funding and technical support for a Christian microfinance institution (MFI) called the Local  Enterprise Assistance Program (LEAP). WHI, along with World Relief and World Relief Canada, led a successful rehabilitation program to save LEAP from complete collapse after the catastrophic events of the Liberian civil war. LEAP has won international recognition because of the positive effects it is having amidst the sheer poverty and difficult sociopolitical environment in Liberia. One LEAP client was awarded a “Global Microentrepreneurship Award,” which was presented at the United Nation’s headquarters. LEAP is by far the largest MFI in Liberia. However, it has run into technical and managerial problems that WHI expects to decisively address in 2008.

In 2006 and 2007, LEAP was awarded major grant contributions
from a consortium of international donors, including the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Capital Development Fund, and Cordaid. LEAP has extensive resources to finance client growth yet it continues to face tremendous demand
from the microenterprise sector in Liberia. LEAP’s subsequent growth overwhelmed its fledgling managerial and technical capacity which resulted in portfolio quality problems. In early 2007 LEAP initiated a series of internal reforms to help address the late payment problems but this effort was not as successful as was hoped. LEAP’s portfolio at risk has decreased substantially, but other management and technical problems have also crept up. Beginning in March 2008, WHI and World Relief Canada will finance the use of an international microfinance technical consultant in Liberia for at least nine months. This consultant is known as a gifted trouble shooter and should help put LEAP back on the right track.