IRIN Focus on war orphans

Abigail Doe,18, has lived at the Fatima Cottage orphanage ever since she lost her parents nine years ago during Liberia’s civil war. They were killed neither by bombs nor by bullets, but by hunger, she says. She could have suffered a similar fate but was taken in by Mother Young as the 325 children at the orphanage, whose ages range from a few weeks to 18 years, call their common benefactor. Seventy-five-year-old Victoria Young is the spiritual leader of the Fatima Cottage centre, which she created 26 years ago. The institution caters mainly for the thousands of children who, like Abigail, lost their parents as Liberia’s various factions fought for power between 1989 and 1997. Young told IRIN there were about 100 orphanages in and around Monrovia but many more children live outside such institutions. The one she heads struggles, like others, with the shortage of resources that many sectors in the country face. The centre’s classrooms lack chairs and desks. The roofs leak. Most of the children sleep on thin foam matresses, mats or cloths spread on the floor. However, the floors are swept clean and the few personal belongings are kept neatly. At the centre, the children receive nine years of formal education and also vocational training. Five senior nurses provide medical care. The Liberian military tries to care for its own orphans through the National Military Families Association of Liberia, NAMFA. Its programme for the widows and orphans of soldiers killed in action and disabled soldiers is run by army Colonel Ernest Urey who, Mother Young said, saved her life during the civil war—she has since “adopted” him as her son. NAMFA has registered 650 military orphans who still roam the streets of Monrovia and squat in half finished and abandoned buildings, because they have no home. They first came to the army’s attention when the start of a redundancy and retirement exercise sent desperate army widows flocking to the Barclay Training Center (BTC) in Monrovia, claiming their deceased husbands’ service allowances. “Some hadn’t eaten in days, others were living in gutters, abandoned buildings and the open field at the BTC,” Urey told IRIN on 4 July. Many live at the unfinished Ministry of Health building in Monrovia’s Congo Town neighbourhood. Army orphans and widows can only see doctors at the army clinic if they can afford the 10-20 Liberian dollar (25 to 50 US cents) consultancy fee. NAMFA cannot subsidise their health bills. Like many other public institutions, it gets no government money: none is available. It relies on individuals who give periodic or one-off donations of blankets or other supplies. “We appeal for anything they can give,” Urey said. Sustained help is impossible because of the state of the economy, he added. The local branch of CICAL International, a New York company, supplies used cloths. No other local or international NGO or firm helps NAMFA, although the US Embassy is awaiting a project proposal. In the meantime, NAMFA needs used clothing, blankets, high nutrition foods to curb malnutrition, antibiotics, anti-malaria drugs, wheel chairs, crutches and artificial limbs. It also requires a proper home for army orphans and its offices need to be repaired: they were destroyed in a shootout in September 1998 between government forces and a former civil war faction. Urey said there were roughly 3,000 orphans, widows of soldiers killed in action, and disabled soldiers, many of whom were likely to be in outlying areas. So far, he said, NAMFA had not made a direct appeal to them to come forward for help. If it did so, he explained, thousands would besiege his makeshift offices at the BTC. Liberia’s war-affected children remain vulnerable, even in orphanages that serve as home for the more fortunate among them. UNICEF has found these orphanages to be substandard and so has introduced a special protection programme to reintegrate war-affected youth into society. UNICEF’s representative in Liberia, Scholastica Kimaryo, told IRIN her agency was working with the government and NGOs to help children resettle in communities rather than stay in substandard orphanages. At the moment, UNICEF supports 22 centres for war-affected children in a process started immediately after Liberia’s civil war: for example, former child soldiers received counselling when demobilised and girls, who were used as sex slaves and are still terribly traumatised, go to the UNICEF-supported centres for rehabilitation. As in Fatima Cottage, these orphans receive vocational training. Before being reintegrated into society, they follow nine-month courses in areas such as dressmaking, tie-dyeing, domestic science, masonry and mechanics . The future for Liberia’s orphans and other vulnerable children may seem bleak to the outsider but many, like Abigail Doe, are determined to better their lives. Now a 10th grade student at J.J. Ross Memorial High School in Monrovia, she wants to be a nurse. Her motivation, she told IRIN, came from her wartime experiences that gave her strength in tackling physics and chemistry at school.