| Volume 59, August '08 |  |
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1. How did you get involved with the Strongheart Fellowship? When I was four years old my father and I ran from my native country of Liberia because of the civil war. For two years we tried to come home, but kept being forced to flee again because of the rebels. We finally realized the war wasn't stopping and it wasn't safe to go home so we went to a refugee camp in Ghana. The first night at the camp was strange. It was so dark. There was no electricity or running water. I was six years old and slept next to my father on a plastic sheet on the floor. I missed my home. Life in the refugee camp was so sad. People would cry. People were mad. People were blank. They had lost their families and their friends. They had lost their country. Years passed. I grew up. Now I was twelve. No one around me saw a future for themselves. We were stuck. Our people couldn't get jobs outside of the camp because we didn't belong to Ghana. There were not enough jobs in the camp, so people had no money and didn't feel important. They had no hope. People thought life had no future. But for some reason I would look around me and look for what was good. I saw beauty. People told me it wasn't true, but I knew something else was possible. Another life. Another way of being. I pictured myself being in a higher place. I saw myself growing up like a beautiful flower growing out of the mud. My imagination saw me as more than I was. I knew in the middle of hopelessness all around me, that I could create a future for myself and for others. One day, that vision became reality. In 2005, Cori Stern, the founder of the Strongheart Fellowship program, came to my refugee camp. She came to the camp to help pregnant women who had AIDS. I lived near where she was working and she saw me watching her. She started talking to me. I felt like she understood me, like she saw me for who I was. She told me all about her plans to help young people who had survived devastating experiences, like civil war or genocide, receive education and access to resources so that they would have the chance to make their lives great. She knew she could help young people with the desire to grow by showing them a life full of possibilities. She knew these youth could become leaders who would change the world for the better. Cori told me that I had the innate intelligence and inner resilience that she was looking for in a Strongheart Fellow. She invited me to come to the United States and be the first fellow in the Strongheart program. The second program, called Moving Forward, uses sports and games to facilitate discussions of the core themes of constructive communication, self-esteem, resiliency, trust, and team building. 2. What inspired you to make jewelry? As part of the Strongheart Fellowship program each fellow has to develop a project that will raise money for their living expenses and education. The program teaches us how to be entrepreneurs, innovators, and self-sustaining. It teaches us how to see opportunity and act on that opportunity. It teaches us how to see what is possible and create it. Our individual projects have to be related to who we are inside and what we want to do in the world as a career. When I was little I thought I wanted to be a lawyer because I was always told that lawyers and doctors are the great people in our society. But with the help of Strongheart, I found out that my true heart's desire is fashion. I want to be a fashion designer! I want to inspire people to see beauty in the world. So, my Strongheart project had to involve fashion. I decided to start with jewelry because I thought it would be easier to convey a message…a story… through the jewelry about what my country was going through … what I was going through. I thought that if I could take a used bullet from the Liberian civil war …a bullet that caused so much pain and destruction …and melt it down into something beautiful, something that represented new life, I would be showing that transformation is possible. I thought a leaf would be a good symbol of new life…new growth. I decided to make a necklace and to keep part of the used bullet to hang as a pendant next to the leaf so people would remember our loved ones who died, but also have hope that healing and new life is possible. 3. Are you working on any new designs? Yes, I am working on several new versions of the Akawelle necklace and bracelet. 4. What message do you hope to send out with your jewelry? That no matter what you go through, even if something terrible happens in your life, new life is possible. 5. How can more Americans get involved? Americans can buy the jewelry, spread the story, apply to volunteer at the Strongheart House in Liberia or make a donation to the program. The Strongheart House will open in Liberia in the fall of this year and will be my home and home to many, many other youth in the Fellowship program. The website is www.strongheartfellowship.org Something I want to share with you about the youth in my country: The war is over now and so there are many, many youth again in Liberia. But these youth don't believe they can follow their dreams. Everywhere they look around them they are told it is not possible. They do not believe that they can grow and develop themselves into something great. They do not know what is possible. They don't see the opportunity and they don't know how to create it. Many youth do not get an education. They have babies when they are still kids themselves and that's all they do. I want youth to look at me and see me working hard to achieve my dream. By seeing me, I want them to know it is ok for them to dream about what they want in life and to work hard to achieve it. Since I returned to Liberia in May, I have been speaking at schools and on the radio to youth about the importance of them knowing who they are inside and finding a way to develop themselves into who they truly want to be. I talk to kids about their purpose in life and about what they want to be in the future. I talk to them about following what they love doing and helping to build the Liberian dream. The Liberian dream is to build our country, the entire country, so that young people are empowered to make their country great. Right now, youth don't believe their country can be great. Everybody in my country needs to be educated. They need inspiration. They need to see another way to be. The youth of Liberia need confidence. They need to have respect for each other and themselves. That is the only way we will learn to follow our dreams and make our country great. |
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