ZWEDRU CITY, Liberia, 12 December 2005
- "There's an enthusiasm in the children, they really want to learn,"
said Paul Everett, Technical Advisor for the European Commission in Liberia
on Disarmament, Demobilisation, Rehabilitation, and Reintegration (DDRR).
"The community wants to help these kids, too, and volunteer. We have a
great opportunity to get some important work done in Liberia, thanks to
spirit of the Liberia people and the European Commission and UNICEF partnership."
Mr. Everett, an expert on Liberia and
agricultural development, spoke just after completing a three-day joint
EC/UNICEF assessment mission for a EURO 2,500,000 project to provide targeted
assistance to Liberian children associated with fighting forces (CAFF).
The funding will provide skills training and psycho-social support to 2,700
CAFF over a period of 18 months in seven counties, including here in Grand
Gedeh, near Liberia's border with Cote d'Ivoire.
"I want to be an agricultural man, a farmer," said Benson, a seventeen-year-old student in a skills training programme here led by Sustainable Development Promoters (SDP), a Liberian NGO. Thanks to the EC funding, SDP will be able renew its skills training here and offer this life changing programme to 100 new children next year. ""I want to grow more food so my country can develop."
Benson and 13 students are working with SDP agricultural trainer Fedrick Gaye. Mr. Gaye is teaching his students an array of skills, from swamp rice farming to building elevated nurseries.
"Most of them are really trying," said Mr. Gaye. "We work them hard, but they are learning. I also continue to talk with them every morning, we talk, talk, and talk. All of the children were combatants and they do discuss their feelings."
UNICEF Liberia Representative Angela Kearney said, "Thanks to our partnership with the European Commission, UNICEF will help to build community based support networks -- such as child welfare committees, children clubs, and youth groups -- which provide essential psycho-social and family reunification/tracing support to vulnerable children."
Mr. Geoffrey Rudd, the Chargé d'affaires of the Delegation of the European Commission in Liberia, said, "All of us in the international community want to help Liberia's children, and with this funding the European Commission is demonstrating its commitment to help Liberia rebuild by coming to the assistance of Liberia's youth."
For media inquiries, please contact:
Patrick Slavin, Communications Officer, UNICEF Liberia, Cell # 231/6/53 82 98, pslavin@unicef.org