Women Refugees from Liberia Voice Hope in Female President |
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March 23rd, 2006 - 11:38AM |
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Liberian refugees who resettled in the San Francisco Bay area enjoy a day at the beach. Photo: International Rescue Committee By Fayia Sellu, a refugee from Sierra Leone who resettled in the United States with help from the IRC and is now living in Davis, CA. The inauguration on January 16, 2006 of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia’s 23rd President and Africa’s first female head of state, heralded a new era not only for a country that had been in the throes of a senseless war -- one the most atrocious in the history of human kind -- but also for the women of Liberia. After 14 years of conflict and the killing of some 250,000 Liberians, Liberia saw infrastructural socio-economic devastation blow up to anarchic proportions. Previously Liberia was known for her aspirations for the freedom of its people as its very nationhood was founded on the spirit that, “The love of Liberty Brought Us Here.” Liberians have always fashioned their lives after the American dream. Even as I visited in 2001 when Liberia was on its knees and firmly under the thumb of Taylor’s dictatorship, there was still evidence of the American way of life. Thousands of refugees who made it out of Liberia to a third country were resettled in the United States, where their safety was at last secured. Many were reunited with family already here, after years of painful separation. These “U.S. anchors” provide a vital bridge to the newcomers as they transition from the known home-culture to the strange and unfamiliar new American way of doing things. Others, with no family or friends to help, have relied more heavily on the larger Liberian community and the IRC for support and guidance. The IRC provides support to the Liberian refugee community in a number of ways, including a special program which addresses the needs of the Liberian refugee community that has been most disadvantaged by lack of education, decent health care and prolonged exposure to the effects of war and dislocation. These include adult literacy instruction, homework clubs and after school programs for youth, nutrition and parenting classes, and health navigation assistance. This array of services is designed to help the refugees meet their greatest challenge of actually fitting into American society as productive newcomers who contribute to their adopted homeland. Igor Radulovic, IRC’s employment specialist in Oakland, assists refugees in the East Bay where about 150 Liberian refugees have been resettled just in the past year. He says the job of placing the refugees into work is hard in an area like Oakland where there is, for example, 11,000 applicants for 400 jobs at a large chain store. It takes a lot of creativity to pitch refugee clients to prospective employers when most of them have no work experience in the U.S. or back home, worse still is that many even lack the requisite education. Igor said however that their 'life experience' is their 'work experience', especially for Liberian women who use domestic service abilities to get caregiver jobs. Women Still Lack Education With or without war, refugee or not, the position of Liberian women is not an enviable one. President Johnson-Sirleaf may be a Harvard grad and may have held top jobs, but the majority of Liberian women are still illiterate and on the ‘wrong’ side of gender. In September 2005, IRC in Oakland opened the adult literacy class to help Liberian refugee women. As I walked into one of the classes with literacy instructor Chris Bruso, Sarah, an older, rural Liberian woman, caught my eye. Sarah sounded a loud note of optimism that a woman is in the highest office in her native Liberia, but most of her words went in the direction of providing education and empowerment for women in the rural areas. Sarah’s story represents the other million rural women who from sunrise to sunset labor on the farms, take care of their children, and before their lives were uprooted by the war, did not know what went on in the seat of power in Monrovia and did not care. Before she fled to neighboring Ivory Coast Sarah said her macheté which she used in the fields was her only salvation. It is good to see that she can now write her own name and read basic bus signs. Signs of Hope Then there is Josephine, who spent most of her adolescence growing up in a refugee camp in Ivory Coast with mere strangers who rescued her while fleeing. Now living in California, she is gaining confidence with the opportunity of adult education. Will their likes back home ever get the opportunity now offered to them because a woman is at the helm of things? They said they hoped so. It is hope that the Johnson Sirleaf’s presidency offers women in Liberia. Mamie, another Liberian refugee who migrated to the U.S. in 2001, expressed hope in a new Liberia, but also with an equal dose of caution that word from Liberia is not good yet for any celebration. Mamie, whose memory of her home country is stomach-turning, reflects on the Liberia she left behind where drug-crazed gun-toters would disembowel a pregnant woman just to prove a bet that the fetus is male or female; where her brother-in-law was hacked to death with a macheté because he refused orders by rebels to rape her. She says word from Liberia is that electricity, good drinking water, and jobs -- among other necessities -- are still in scarcity. Though Liberia may have made history for itself electing the first female President in Africa and boosted the morale of an overly disadvantaged sex on the continent, it is clear that the war to liberate Liberian -- or African women for that matter -- is rather closer to the beginning than the end. Posted By: Kathleen Sands | Africa, Refugees in the U.S., Women Permalink |
