The Scots charity offering a route out of poverty for war-torn Liberia's kids

from the Daily Record

This is a story on the charity called Mary's Meals. This charity gives a lot lore than food to the children of Liberia. - Kale

By Samantha Booth

ORPHANED children wandering alone around city streets is not an unusual sight in Liberia.

The war-torn country is home to thousands of youngsters who have lost parents in the battles between factions who seek to gain control over the gold and diamond mines.

Many are former child soldiers who are desperately trying to adapt to life free from enslavement by the rival armies.

Some are simply lost and lonely children looking for a way to stave off starvation.

Life in Liberia, on the west coast of Africa, is particularly cruel for youngsters with a disability.

One nine-year-old deaf boy was found wandering the streets in the city of Monrovia by the police.

He could not tell officers where he was from, where his family were or even his name.

But thanks to a small Scottish charity, there was somewhere for this little boy to find refuge and care.

Police took him to the newly opened Oscar Romero School for the Deaf built by Scottish International Relief (SIR) with funds donated by the Rozelle Trust in Paisley.

Here, he was given the name Joseph, a warm bed and food.

Most importantly, Joseph now receives lessons in sign language.

As well as enabling him to communicate, it will also be vital in helping him get an education - his only chance of escaping poverty.

Magnus MacFarlane-Barr, founder of Scottish International Relief, said: "Sign language opens up a whole new world for children like Joseph.

"I found it really moving to see him and the other children start to learn how to sign and begin to realise that they did actually have a way of expressing themselves.

"Just the fact they feel they are being respected enough to be given an education means a lot to them.

"It is a real revelation to them to start communicating with people and it really is incredible to see.

"Sadly, Joseph's story is typical of Liberia. There are so many children like that who have lost their parents.

"His is a very moving story but it happens so much out there it would be hard to say I was shocked."

Scottish International Relief have been working in Liberia for 11 years.

They first got involved during the civil war between 1986 and 1996, when they provided emergency aid to the millions of refugees displaced by the fighting.

To begin with all they could do was send container ships full of clothes, food and medical supplies.

Magnus visited the country for the first time in 1997, when people were attempting to move back to their homes after the worst of the fighting had ended.

SIR helped by building schools and by setting up a mobile medical unit to give primary care. In 2002, in the midst of a second bout of fighting, they took theirMary'sMeals scheme to the country.

It provides children with one meal a day in return for their attendance at school.

Magnus said: "So many of the problems and poverty we see in Liberia is due to the war - a war fuelled by diamonds and gold.

"When we first got involved in the country about half of the population were living in refugee camps.

"One of the distinctive things about the war in Liberia is the number of child soldiers there were.

A lot of the children we work with out there used to be child soldiers.

"In one school I was visiting recently 400 out of 600 pupils had fought with one army or another.

"Soldiers would go into a village, kill all of the adults then order the children to carry the loot from the village.

"From there they would be trained up to be soldiers but in the most part they were just slaves.

"Now we have a generation of children and young people who have had no education whatsoever because of the war." Magnus believes that without schooling, Liberia's people have no chance of escaping their devastating poverty.

In one of the many schools in the city of Westport, head teacher Harrison Marshall faces a daily struggle to help his pupils.

There are so many children but so few classrooms that he runs two schools in one building - one in the afternoon and one in the morning.

Tragically, many more children do not attend at all because they have to work. Countless others come to school hungry.

Teachers are paid 60 US dollars a month, enough to buy one large bag of rice.

Harrison said: "This chronic poverty is one of the things that causes families to break up.

"How can we tell our teenager daughters to behave and stay at home when we cannot feed them?

"How can you blame them if they do not respect us and go their own way?"

Each time Magnus visits Liberia to help its people he becomes ever more aware of the problems facing the country's high population of deaf children. Many were born with their disability but many more are deaf due to childhood diseases or infections - illnesses that could easily have been treated with antibiotics.

Magnus said: "In a lot of the other schools we were working in we were coming across a lot of deaf children and it soon became clear that there was no provision for them.

"Over a couple of years we could see that the deaf children would get frustrated at not being able to communicate and would end up getting into trouble. They would feel very excluded from everything and, of course, they have no way of telling anyone how they feel.

"They would also get annoyed by the way they were treated by the other kids.

"There is a huge lack of awareness about deafness and a lot of people were assuming that these children were stupid.

"So a couple of years ago we came up with the idea of starting a school for deaf children and the Oscar Romero School is the result.

"The need for it is so apparent. I was just there for a few days but in that time around 10 children were brought to the school either by parents hoping we would educate their deaf child or, like Joseph, they arrived at our door after having been abandoned or orphaned.

"I think we can accommodate 60 children but unfortunately I think we will reach that quite quickly."

To make a donation to Mary's Meals or Scottish International Relief, call 0800 698 1212 or log on to www.marysmeals.org

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