The Youth!

I almost feel like this, The Youth!, should be said in some kind of ominous Morgan Freeman voice – as the word youth is so often saturated with a million other connotations beside people that happen to be adolescents.  Youth are so often presented as a problem: a mass of hormones to be controlled, a promise to be carefully shepherded, an unpredictable and ever growing mass of people that can destabilize countries and entire regions.  To be sure, there are many wonderful individuals and organizations that see youth in a much more positive light, but in many policy reports, media pieces, and high level conferences everyone seems to be constantly trying to answer the puzzling question: what is to be done about the youth?!  This question is certainly front and center in Liberia – a country with such a recent past of youth, along with adults, actively taking part in the violent destruction of the nation’s people and resources.  The UN has stated that “the high number of unemployed or under-employed youth remains a particular challenge, since they constitute a volatile group that could be used by spoilers seeking to undermine stability” (emphasis mine).

The “youth bulge” is a population conundrum heard round the world.  Improved health care combined with steady high birth rates has resulted in ballooning populations that have drastically increased the proportion of young people as compared to the rest of the population.  In Liberia, youth is classified as any one between the ages of 15-35 years, close to 30% of the population (Youth Fragility Assessment, 2009).   Many countries have a generous definition for the youth cohort but Liberia at least has a plausible rationale for the large age range.  The fourteen year war (1989-2003) affected nearly everyone in the country, as such hundreds of thousands of people missed out on years of education and development.  Most of these people, “overage youth”, are now in their mid to late twenties and even early thirties.  Many are working diligently to piece together their lives and complete their education and transition in the workforce.  They are developmentally, at least, in the stage of youth even though their age and other social stations in life may indicate that many of them are adults.   As such, it is entirely possible to find a 30 year old person who is both the head of a household and a 12^th grade student.  This can be quite challenging as there is often and overlapping need for basic knowledge learned in school such as literacy, numeracy, and critical thinking in traditional subjects while also needing skills gained through life skills education (health, human rights, conflict resolution, etc education), workforce and livelihood development, civic engagement and protection. Add to this the very different needs of a 15 year old vs. a 35 year old (let alone further distinguishing between male and female, urban and rural, GBV survivors, ex-combatants, etc) and it is easy to see why the issue of youth is so big and complex.  A possible solution lies only in a comprehensive and sustained long term strategy that integrates multiple sectors to fully address the needs of youth.  Unfortunately this is nearly impossible to get donor or government funding for and challenging to implement as it would require the government to have the capacity to take key decision making roles and then deliver on complex implementation.  At present, the capacity of the government is being built and progress has been made but it is evident, if only from the sheer number of UN and NGO Land Cruisers tooling around Monrovia, that development partners are still in the driver’s seat here.

Wow, I think I veered off into the world of policy wonk speak there.  Back to the youth!  And specifically the female youth!  As a result from my time here in Liberia, but also influenced from lots of other life experiences, I find myself increasingly interested in the role of youth in driving their own development and empowerment.  Specifically, how do adolescent girls develop the voice and leadership skills? And then use these skills to empower not only themselves but also affect positive change in their communities? I think that the development of both the ability to speak out and let your voice be heard and the ability to lead others to do the same is of vital importance for both girls and boys as they transition into adulthood and become the leaders or their communities and nations.  In Liberia, I think it is absolutely crucial for girls to develop this capacity to overcome the many challenges imposed on them by their nations historical, economic, and cultural realities.  My starting point for how to think about designing a way to address this is a combination of gender equality, human rights education, and leadership development that should include both girls and boys in partnership but with the express aim of increasing girls’ ability to be leaders.

From my journey around rural communities in Liberia and interviews I conducted with over sixty (small sample size I know so not representative blah blah blah) female students, teachers, and community members I learned that there are two major reasons why girls drop out of primary school (the very first step on the road to empowerment and leadership): 1) poverty (both lack of money to pay for uniform, book, shoes and the need for the girl to earn money to contribute to the family income) and 2) pregnancy – over 25% of girls age 15-19 years old have already had a child (Youth Fragility Assessment, 2009).  Poverty is big and multifaceted and requires long term solutions that have lots to do with international finance, trade, and power relations between nations.  But pregnancy! Early, unplanned, and often unwanted pregnancy is an interpersonal obstacle that can be overcome with education at the local level!  If the first step in getting girls to stay in school is to prevent teenage pregnancy, then it very well may follow that the first step in preventing teenage pregnancy is a girls’ ability to say “no!’ and have that “no!” be heard and respected not only by her potential partner but also by her community and society at large.  Could empowerment through leadership development be a way to achieve this? And what is the role of youth agency, a girls’ ability to assert control and driver her own empowerment and development process, have in this type of leadership development?  I am still thinking through this and will likely be thinking through it for a long time.  Thoughts and insights are welcome!

Language Confusion in English Speaking Countries

"Oh, Liberians speak English, it will be easy to do research there!"  This was a common refrain that I heard from both Americans and Monrovia-based Liberians alike.  It is assumed that since we all speak the same language, we will have no problems communicating.  Nice theory.  While I can understand that majority that is said to me, it is not reciprocated when I am outside of Monrovia and I was met with furrowing brows and exclamations of confusion from children and community members when I attempted to conduct interviews over the past couple of weeks.  Educated Liberians get my American-accented standard English just fine, but it is more challenging the more rural, or the younger the listener gets.  Luckily, I had two devoted translators with me when I conducted interviews in the schools and as a result I was able to more or less understand and be understood by Gabriel or Emmanuel repeating my exact words, just in their accent or simply replacing a few key phrases.  Another added bonus is that attempting to communicate in Liberian English has caused my Gambian English to come back in full force - with all that it entails.  Stunted words, incomplete sentences, incorrect subject verb agreement and tense - the whole shebang.  My coworkers applaud me for being so easy to understand.  Some children even understand me!  So all is not lost.  On the whole I find it much easier to communicate in casual conversation then formal conversation just because it is easier to transition into the Liberian English when my brain isn't trying to translate big words or complex concepts.

Short tutorial on Liberian English:
1.  Take all normal grammar rules and ignore them.  Remove unnecessary words to shorten sentences, words such as articles, conjunctions, tense indicators, etc.  When in doubt, state things in the present progressive form, i.e. "I am having."  Inflection is key, this can only be learned by listening closely.
2. Add "oh" for emphasis.  As in "I just slammed your hand in the car door, sorry oh!"
3. Or repeat for emphasis: small small, now now, big big. 
4. Vocabulary 101: palaver = confusions/disagreement, humbugging = sexual assault/rape, get belly = pregnant, school business = education, man and woman business = sex, how to become a mother = reproductive health, taking out bella = abortion, my eye tear = you cannot cheat me/I've seen many thing, eat my eye = to cheat, current = electricity, vexed = angry, rouge = thief, to eat (something) = steal. 

There are tons more awesome vocabulary words that I have probably forgotten and ones that I have yet to learn so this list could be greatly expanded and improved but it gives you an idea.  Now that I am back in Monrovia after a two week trip through  three counties (an update to come soon) my exposure to deep Liberian English is likely to lessen but the market is still a great place to learn!

For a more entertaining and comprehensive list check out Moved To Monrovia's guide here. 

What does that even mean?!

Post-conflict, reconstruction and recovery, fragile states – these are all big development buzz words that get tossed around with abandon so much that their meanings are often reduced to the point of uselessness.  The international development community’s dependence on buzz words is probably worse then other industries, although all disciplines have their own preferred vocabularies and peculiarities that make them distinct.  Words like post-conflict and fragile get used because they quickly and easily communicate complex, interrelated concepts and ideas and also establish that those using them are “in the know."  Plus it allows people to demonstrate their place in the club of development/humanitarian workers, so that is always useful.  But while these words establish a person’s “cred” within some circles,  for the vast majority of people these words elicit quizzical, understandable confusion.  So what does it even mean?  To say that “Liberia is a post-conflict country, that while still displaying aspects of fragility is making a confident transition from reconstruction and recovery efforts to full scale economic and social development for poverty alleviation.”  Most people do not need to really know what this sentence means; it is far more useful and interesting to understand this complex sentence by attempting to understand the equally complicated history of Liberia.  While this description will not due justice to the very complicated, vast, multifaceted aspects that has shaped Liberia, it will provide some context for what it means to be working on education in Liberia.  Without further ado, the condensed version...

Liberia’s history has been marked by tensions between Americo-Liberians, freed American slaves, and indigenous populations since the founding of the country in 1822. Basically, America thought that Liberia would make a great place to send all the free-born blacks and ex-slaves - returning them to their "homeland" would save America a lot of headaches and prevent free people from inciting slaves to rebel against their slave-holders.   So off many people went to Liberia and the Americo-Liberians quickly set about instituted their own version of racially driven oppression,  monopolizing the countries resources for an elite few and largely ignoring the poverty that had become a way of life for the many tribes that called the lands within Liberia home.  These historical tensions continued to color Liberian politics and social life, eventually exploding into two civil wars, largely provoked by ethnic factionalism and marginalization, which started in 1980 with the coup that brought Samuel Doe to power, through the 1990’s when Charles Taylor seized the country and onto the early 2000’s when multiple rival rebel forces and government forces tore the country into a million little pieces.  Finally in 2003 peace agreements that actually held were signed (thanks in large part to strong Liberian women who staged successful and effective peace protests) and the country prepared to make the long climb out of protracted conflict and started to piece together their once proud country.  

The conflicts were extremely brutal with many incidents of torture, looting, killing of civilians, widespread conscription of child soldiers (who were often drugged and forced to fight), and pervasive use of rape as a weapon of war.  Of the 2.5 million people living in Liberia before the wars, the United Nations estimates that over 270,000 people died in the wars, 750,000 people fled, and 1.2 million were internally displaced.  In addition to leading to utter economic collapse and the destruction of basic infrastructure, the wars exacerbated the already declining education system - destroying infrastructure, the teaching profession, and access to even basic schooling, let alone access to quality education.  The return to peace has caused a sharp increase in demand for education and children and youth have flooded back into schools, overwhelming the system and adding complex needs due the lack of education and the wide age range of students enrolled in primary education (there are often 8 year olds and 17 year olds in the same grade one classroom).

Following the end of the war in 2003/4, elections were held  that were largely considered democratic and fair by the international community.  Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Harvard University trained economist and seen as culturally, although not ethnically, Americo-Liberian, was elected to the presidency in 2006 and has led a popular democratic government that regularly displays high levels of political will to reform and improve the nation.  She is up for reelection this fall and is expected to have a good change of winning.  The country has made progress in her Sirleaf’s first term – roads have been built, electricity restored to the capital (it was absent for ten years), and she has laid the ground-work for economic recovery.  Despite the many positives, there are still many challenges including widespread corruption. These realities are partly to be expected in a country emerging from near total destruction, but the slow pace of reform has also led to frustration, as a lot of the work she has accomplished is not visible to the average citizen.  Roads are something the average citizen can understand, the magnitude of eliminating the country's debt with international financing institutions is not.

Liberia’s history of tensions along ethnic lines persists although ethnicity is rarely discussed and the the government is trying to instill a sense of national unity that transcends ethnic differences.  In addition to ethnic divisions, gender inequality and gender-based violence remains a painful reality for the majority of Liberian women - close to 80% of women have been sexually assaulted. Youth, especially ex-combatants, experience marginalization and exclusion in differing degrees and are seen as susceptible to recruitment to militias if not fully integrated back into society.  The vast majority of Liberian youth have never known a life without pervasive violence.  Machel (1996) notes the impact of sustained violence on children:

“many of today’s conflicts last the length of ‘childhood’, meaning that from birth to early adulthood, children will experience multiple and accumulative assaults.  Disrupting the social networks and primary relationships that support children’s physical, emotional, moral, cognitive, and social development in this way, and for this duration, can have profound physical and psychological implications.”

Education is often seen as a primary way to encourage youth to rejoin established social functions and expectations in a peaceful society, yet delivery of even basic education services is challenging throughout the country and is made worse by widespread poverty and a weak economy that holds little promise of formal employment.  “Civil war and lack of resources have had a dramatic effect on education managers and teachers, many of whom were displaced or forced to leave the country during the conflict.  Those who stayed have not been paid consistently since 1989.  In schools that continued to function teachers who left were replaced by teachers without formal qualifications or experience; an estimated 62% of the teachers currently in the system are unqualified.” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 7) 

As a result of these challenges, teacher attendance is low and when teachers are present in the classroom, the effectiveness of instruction is severely limited.   

            So that is the quick and dirty history and its education implications spiel – with lots left out and glossed over in favor of expedience.   There are many exemplary documentaries, non-fiction books, novels, and memories about Liberia that I highly recommend if you would like to delve deeper into the history of the country.  I highly recommend these two docs: “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” about the women’s peace movement and “An Uncivil War” that was done in part by Tim Hetherington, the photojournalist that was recently killed in Libya, who was embedded with different rebel factions during the fourteen year war.  While all of this can seem a bit intense, it is because it is.  Maybe that is an apt response to the "what does it mean: question proposed: post-conflict = intense.  But it also means hope in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.  It also means amazingly strong and resilient Liberians that are fighting the peaceful fight for a better future and a better Liberia.  The people most invested in ensuring peace, are the very ones who experience the wretches of war.  The Liberians I have met so far are amazingly hopeful and optimistic, attributes that I think make the story of Liberia all the more compelling.