Lisa is a graduate student from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, studying International Studies with a focus in conflict resolution. Her workshops employ frontal lectures, discussions and role-play exercises to analyze conflict and the ways in which it can be understood, managed and transformed.

Three workshops have been conducted thus far, for SHIFSD staff members, Buduburam NGO leaders from “One Society,” and members of the Veteran Child Soldiers Association of Liberia (VECSAOL). She has two more workshops in her future at Buduburam – one for the participants of SHIFSD’s Adult Literacy program, and the last for Women of Glory, a women’s vocational school.

Lisa came to work in Buduburam upon the recommendation of former SHIFSD volunteer Rebecca O’Donnell, who she met while traveling in New Zealand. Upon arrival, it became immediately clear how crucial her role here is. Regarding the need for refugees to deal with conflict, Lisa says, “They have grown up in a conflict, they are here because of conflict, they can’t go back because of conflict. Everything in their lives is entrenched in conflict.”

High rates of domestic abuse, drug and alcohol abuse and depression are major signs of internalized conflict that go unaddressed at Buduburam, because no counseling whatsoever is available to the refugee population, which has been battered by more than 15 years of brutal civil war. A sense of victimization and defeatism also plagues the community, Lisa points out, which creates a form of inner conflict that prevents many Buduburam refugees from working to release themselves from cycles of poverty - both material and emotional.

This realization caused Lisa to readjust her workshop to address internal conflict as well as external, and the success has been resounding. Participants across the demographic spectrum have left the workshops visibly invigorated. Word of the conflict has spread, and additional groups have come forth asking her to demonstrate the same lessons to them. Even unattached bystanders to any organization found themselves learning. One gentleman named Boyd wandered into one of the workshops out of mere curiosity – and ended up staying for the full seven hours. Upon leaving, his one complaint was that it was too short.

Lisa’s eyes light up when she recounts the thanks she has been given from the participants. “People have been really really pleased to have an outlet to express themselves, happy to have someone explain all the facets of conflict, and excited to learn how to listen and be listened to… I never expected to have people tell me that I changed their lives,” she says.

The success of the workshops has traveled all the way to the United Nations. A UN employee who works with an NGO on camp, has asked Lisa to hold off on returning to Australia in order to help solve some conflicts within that NGO. She has agreed. And with a bit of luck, some new conflicts will come her way and keep her here longer.

ALP schoolchildren, as a whole, come from extremely needy refugee families, many of which cannot afford to feed their children regularly or adequately. As a result, the performance of the children in school suffers, as does their attendance rate. The ALP functions to provide primary education within three years instead of six, to support the integration of its graduates into a formal school system. Students who regularly cut classes due to inattention stemming from hunger risk their entire academic future.

Both SHIFSD and Africa Aid will closely monitor the School Lunch Program for effectiveness and nutritional benefits. Balanced meals will be prioritized, in an effort to contribute to the general fitness of the children and, more specifically, to the ALP’s student retention and attendance rates.

The food will be prepared in SHIFSD’s own kitchen, which is being constructed specifically for the project. The organization initially considered teaming with a neighbor school to provide lunch for its students. However, upon further consideration, both SHIFSD and Africa Aid came to the conclusion that it would be more valuable to increase the capacity and sustainability of SHIFSD and the ALP with its own kitchen. In this manner, greater control over the nutritional value of the meals will be exercised. Additionally, SHIFSD will hire mothers of ALP children (including participants of its own Adult Literacy Program) to work as cooks and servers, thereby providing them much-needed employment, while contributing to a greater sense of community.

The primary purpose of the School Lunch Program is simple: to feed ALP children. However, the program has been designed to maximize sustainability on all fronts. The ALP as a whole will benefit by becoming a more optimal learning environment. With its own kitchen, SHIFSD can monitor the program more effectively and increase its capacity for future programs. And no less significant is the role of the mothers in providing the food, thereby generating their own income while offering a hand in the education of their children.

One Society came together in the face of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) continuous severance of aid to Liberian refugees. By pooling together resources and minds, community leaders believed, they could combat widening gaps in camp services, caused by UNHCR’s gradual withdrawal.

The organization emerged from three years of discussion among Children’s Better Way (CBW), SHIFSD and the Movement for the Promotion of Gender Equality in Liberia (MOPGEL). The idea came to fruition in late 2006 when a Canadian university announced its intention to construct a resource center for organizations on camp.

With the encouragement of the Camp Manager, a Ghanaian government representative, the project was launched, with CBW Executive Director Semeh Roberts serving as the head, and SHIFSD Director Jeremiah Burgess working as his deputy. The seven-member secretariat meets on a weekly basis, and the entire body monthly.

One Society members will work together to enhance capacity-building ventures, leadership training workshops, volunteer placement and fundraising. By centralizing these efforts, the broader Buduburam community will benefit from each organization’s achievements, “in fulfillment of the quest for sustainable development, social justice and organizational support,” reads the coalition’s Memorandum of Understanding.

With organizations clamoring to join the new effort, membership criteria will need to be streamlined, to maximize the credibility of the coalition. According to a preliminary draft of the coalition’s aims, “One Society’s aim primarily is to serve as a channel to strengthen the capacity of member organizations as well as to monitor activities, uphold accountability, honesty and transparency within the network for the benefit of target beneficiaries.” constitution is currently being drafted to set guidelines for membership.

Much attention has recently been given to reconstruction efforts in Liberia. Beginning in 2004, the UNHCR launched a rigorous effort to promote the voluntary repatriation of the approximately 250,000 Liberian refugees scattered across the region. However, only 70,000 refugees have returned to Liberia under the Voluntary Repatriation Scheme. In an effort to understand the factors preventing refugees from returning home, the Foundation for Security and Development in Africa (FOSDA) conducted two focus group discussions in March 2006 at Buduburam Refugee Settlement, home to more than 40,000 Liberian refugees.

The participants in the focus group raised a number of concerns regarding repatriation. The UNHCR claims unequivocally that Liberia is safe and that employment opportunities abound. However, 85% of the Liberian population is unemployed, and that number is growing. Figures indicate that levels of extreme poverty and hunger continue to rise.

Security and infrastructure are also major concerns among a population that escaped from more than 15 years of brutal fighting. Refugees have received word of violent incidents and looming tension around the country. There also exist doubts regarding the inability of Liberian infrastructure to absorb returning refugees, particularly as it pertains to education, safe drinking water and health care.

While life as a refugee on Buduburam is rife with poverty and hardships, many of the residents have lived here since the early 1990s. Some hardly remember Liberia, others were born here and many have no relatives or homes to return to. They have invested in schools, churches and small businesses, and there is access to health care, albeit inadequate. The repatriation scheme does not include compensation for those investments.

While refugees are aware that UNHCR has indicated that it will step up its gradual withdrawal of services in June 2007, the Buduburam community is here to stay, certainly for the foreseeable future. Many refugees have indicated their intention to stay in Ghana and others have too many reservations to do so under the current repatriation scheme.

To that end, SHIFSD firmly believes in strengthening the refugees in Buduburam to increase self-sufficiency among those who will continue to live in Ghana and those who wish to return but feel ill-equipped to do so. According to the FOSDA study, “the bad experiences of the war make it almost impossible for some of [the refugees] to contemplate returning home without training, a place to lay their heads, financial resources and other necessities. Providing education and training will result in a community of individuals that can be integrated into whichever society they choose to call home. More poignantly, they can return to Liberia able to offer a hand in reconstruction efforts, instead of exacerbating a population of idle, impoverished and unemployed citizens. SHIFSD designs its programs to benefit not only the individuals in question, but also the future and stability of Liberia and the entire region.

SHIFSD/IBIS Report on Baseline Survey

Arguably, products of the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law and the prestigious A.M. Doglotti College of Medicine and a retinue of faculties at the University of Liberia have since spread far and wide contributing considerably in their respective feats.

Our educational system was indeed remarkable and Liberians could proudly make good ambassadors of so small a country that is ten times the size of Lebanon.
Regrettably, the pursuit of war as an option to capture state power has sent Liberia more than a century back. Every facet of society has suffered at the expense of destruction.

At the Buduburam refugee camp, education and the status of learning remain bleak. Classrooms are joked and crammed, commitment of the part of teachers is secondary due to lack of incentives, library facilities completely unavailable and the traditional enthusiasm synonymous to students’ upbeat mood tends to be tilted along a lackadaisical front for a number of obvious reasons.

The nation Liberia is on the road to stability and such an environment points to the fact that reconstruction, readjustment, rehabilitation, resettlement and reintegration have got to abound. Varied skills and trained human resource potentials have to be mobilized in that direction.
But with the existing trend, there is an element of juxtaposition to fill the gap. SHIFSD, is therefore of the conviction that various international interventions would be required to salvage the looming development.

At Buduburam Camp, there are many who out of zealotry are clamoring to enroll into schools: be it primary, Junior Secondary, Secondary, short-term courses, skills training for women and young girls especially out of school dropouts, vocational, professional and tertiary institutions.
Our concern at SHIFSD stems from the understanding that in order to return to our proper place within the comity of nations and in order to be seen as effective competitors on international platforms, we must first seek the academic kingdom, empower ourselves – so that such empowerment would culminate into all other things to enhance the work of so ideal a kingdom.

No country can ever survive without the requisite skills and human resource base to deliver in terms of the increasing demands and challenges our changing world is poised to bring.

Democracy in the new Liberia would only be seen credible if those structures that obtain in a democratic society are controlled, managed, administered, engineered and made implementable by trained Liberian professionals, academics, technocrats and the like.
The battle against poverty, disease and ignorance would no doubt be ours if the question of our shattered educational system gets redressed in a holistic manner. It’s the only way the late Speaker’s speech would attract real meaning.

Although the actions and inactions of man coupled with their attendant ramifications could amount to approximate indicators for possible outburst or looming tenterhooks, an iota of conjecture with proximity to the latter cannot be ignored.

So was the case of Liberia - that despite despotism, political patronage, cronyism, nepotism, single domination by an insignificant minority of the population, saw itself at each other’s throat in a ruthless, barbaric and uncivilized bid for power.

Then the unforeseeable happened resulting to families being torn apart, homes shattered, brothers and sisters pursuing a belligerent path, destruction worsened, diseases became prevalent, displacement abound and life in exile considered an option for and dozen others.
To put it mildly, what currently obtains as Buduburam Camp originally hosted a psychiatrically related facility, which was apparently deserted. But thanks for the kind courtesy of the Government of Ghana, which after the brief stay of the initial batch of Liberian refugees at the Tema Harbor in September 1990, relocated them to Buduburam - 30km outside of Accra.

The lack of inadequate infrastructure to house refuges at the time made the option as to the use of tents compelling. Like all others who experienced the tragic consequences of war, Liberian refugees of course had to form queues daily for meals, wash-down and visit the lavatory. Those days could be empathetically described as rough-ride moments - there were scrambles for almost everything.

However, the dynamics associated with man in an attempt to conform to, improve upon, maintain or surmount the challenges of any new environment began to take roots. The refugees temporarily adjusted and started to learn by the ropes - as it were the hard way. The role of religious and civic bodies cannot be over-emphasized given the huge level of humanitarian inflows to Liberian refugees.

As the combination of physical, social, psychological and physiological adjustment started to inundate the refugees; the need to expand their firmaments, infuse comfort and attract convenience took on their resilience.

With the advent of increase possibilities and opportunities to make their stay cozy to say the least, skills, especially of vocational relevance took the center stage in the construction of affordable mud-brick styled structures by refugees’ standards were built. These houses were poorly roofed with ‘roofing fell’ not meant to take the role of corrugated roofing sheets. Anyway, a staggering population was making do to blaze the trail. Worth noting, a systematic evolution of the refugees from tents to manageable dwelling - at least this time with corrugated iron sheets is almost predominant.

Folks on the other hand with a background in education and who once stood in the vanguard along the frontier of knowledge reckoned the need to begin what set off as tutorials on a voluntary basis and laboriously germinated into the present Buduburam Refugee Community School with a population of over 800 pupils. The UN Refugee Agency through its implementing partners, the Christian Council of Ghana has contributed significantly to bringing BUDUSEC to its current status.
Seizing the strategic initiative to prepare some refugees for constructive re-absorption into a new, stable and peaceful Liberia, the UNHCR has since 1992 provided educational assistance to a trickle of the refugees - which a number of critics regard as negligible amidst the task of reconstruction. Some of the beneficiaries are to date contributing to the emergence of a new Liberia, some journeyed across the Atlantic while the rest are yet to make a final determination but continue to exert their presence through meaningful contributions in a number of areas.

The survival question is one of serious concern for refugees in particular. While some tend to attach great deal of unease to ecumenical preoccupation in the name of faith in God, to the contrary, there are some who believe that the days of ‘manna intervention’ are no more and that one must take his/her destiny into his/her own hands.

A few are edging on to venture into a diversity of business initiatives. Although some might not be as economically prosperous and profitable as could have been the case in a normal environment - the tendency to be positively engaged is a worthwhile end product. On the whole, those who have and continue to make it per the micro-economics and its slow returns vis-à-vis the market forces operating in the refugee camp deserve a pat on the back.
About 15%, of the population at the camp is relying on either regular or intermittent remittances from relations, friends and the alike. Insignificant as beneficiaries of remittances are to non-beneficiaries, most refugees remain resolute in doing whatever profitable an undertaking that would reap for them credible capital. The majority relies on small-scale back yard gardens.

Entering the Buduburam camp as a first-time visitor; the euphoric gestures and seemingly jiggy fiesta of many a hyper-trigger youth tend to present an all-jolly-good-time bunch of folks. What’s the big deal about merriment and the craze of youthfulness? That’s no condonation or justification for a 360-day nice-time spree.

The track-record of some refugees could be nothing to write home about though but as in any society, the taint of so irrelevant a fingerful of chaps take precedence over the dignified majority.

Life may not be all that burgeoning if you like but a firm determination to rise to the occasion gracefully and assertively are cornerstones and crucial proponents that have helped immensely to motivate the human spirit of Liberians.
The attendant fortunes of refugeeism that culminated into family reunion and possibilities for political asylum-seekers to get resettled to America and parts of Europe, it is hoped would bring about substantial human resource and developmental returns to Liberia in years to come - given the foresight of beneficiaries, especially the youth who would be expected to assume the mantle of statesmanship. It is hoped they would attach meaning to the huge opportunities that would unfold.

For most Liberians, the signing of the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement brings glamour of hope, prospect and challenge towards the birth of a new Liberia. Sustaining that goodwill on the part of parties to the Accord is a sacrifice worth pursuing in the supreme interest of lasting peace.
Notwithstanding, while there has been an element of impressive showing and yearning to embark on voluntary repatriation to Liberia, a significant proportion of refugees think the outcome of the October 11 General and Presidential Elections in Liberia could inform mass return after a little over a decade in exile.

The Two-Day alternating training sought to provide SHIFSD staff with the skills and know-how in the scientific collection of data, processing, data analysis, the quantative and qualitative synchronization, steps and approaches relevant to narrative report writing in the most comprehensive though but logical manner.

Meanwhile, another staff capacity-building workshop in strategic leadership skills in appreciation to the varied roles of all components in a management setting was all conducted for folks at SHIFSD.

The Terms of Agreement shall seek to address relevant concerns in the following fields:

• Organization capacity-building for SHIFSD.
• Organize programme on HIV/AIDS Day for School Children in the Camp.
• Baseline Survey on out of school kids and dropouts.
• Identification of teachers for the proposed Accelerated Learning Programme.

The Pilot Phase covers the period from November 2004 to March 2005.
Speaking to SHIFSD Online News, Jeremiah Burgess, Executive Director of the Organization extolled the donor for their keen interest in the plight of Liberian refugees and said SHIFSD was prepared to justify the confidence reposed in it.

Earlier, Ms Diana Appiah, Education facilitator of the Ibis-West Africa EfE Buduburam Project, told SHIFSD the onus was on them to demonstrate professionalism in the discharge of the Agreement to the letter. She called on SHIFSD to creditably use expertise and human resource at its disposal to diligently deliver on performance. Said she: “SHIFSD has a duty to work assiduously and break new grounds as the Education in Emergency Programme (EEP) gets off the ground in the Buduburam Settlement.”

Owing to its institutional outreach objectives through a new programme of capacity-building initiatives with national and sub-regional networks of civil society organizations, Ibis West Africa has officially launched its Education for Empowerment Programme at the Buduburam Refugee Settlement.
The focus of Ibis-West Africa’s EfE programme at Buduburam would target out-of-school children between the ages of 6 and 15 as well as improve the quality of education on the Buduburam Refugee Camp. The programme reckons its secondary target group to be teachers and community education volunteers who will assist in the quality improvement and ‘out-of-school’ programme.

Ibis holds the conviction that the programme’s expected outcome will achieve/ensure:

• A significant number of education actors working together to improve education in deprive areas.
• Significant improvement in the quality of education.
• Significant number of “out-of-school” children gaining basic literacy and numeracy skills.
• Improvement of the status of girls and gender equity within the education sector.
• Significant increase in civil society participation in the education sector.
• School administrators, teachers and education volunteers’ capacities supported to improve their abilities to cope with their role.

The October 2004 launch EfE at the Buduburam Refugee Camp, paying host to approximately 50,000 Liberian refugees underscores Ibis critical intervention in the Mano River Union of which Liberia, Sierra Lone and Guinea are the key stakeholders. Ibis’ focus will be on democratization including media rights, peace-building and conflict resolution.

It must be emphasized that Ibis’ role will indeed be strategic given the huge rate of school dropouts amongst youths at the Buduburam Camp.