Written by Albertina Nyantee, CEO, Giants Of Hope Foundation
Growing up as a child I was privileged to work along with catholic missionaries and we frequently went out to visit families, the sick and people who were hospitalized. I saw first-hand the tremendous suffering and misery that children from poor and under-privileged families are going through. It is heart-breaking to see children of sch
ool going age enduring the kind of hardship and physical abused as result of poverty. Many of the children have to engaged in work that is unbearable and very strenuous leaving them no time to enjoy their childhood. Children growing up with extended families or foster parents are faced with many obstacles, they are compelled to work throughout the day and they have little time to play and grow up like any other children living with their biological parents or living in affluent societies. Moreover, during the Liberian civil war, many children became orphan because either their parents were either killed by rebels or government soldiers and most the children ended up living with extended families or strangers. These family members or strangers treat them as slaves or domestic servant, depriving the little ones the right to education and a decent childhood. This is a pattern throughout Africa where people who are poor and live in the countryside will give their children to people who live in the city with the hope that the children will be educated and have a decent childhood, I have witnessed and experienced this first hand and it brings pain to my heart to see children treated in such way either because their biological parents are poor or may have died during the civil war or from a curable disease. I have seen lot of children treated as slaves in lots of homes in Liberia. There are lots of people in the rural areas who are very poor and cannot afford to take care of their children so they give them to people in the bigger cities to live with in order for them to be care for and educated. These caregivers will use these kids as domestic servants and sometimes even sexually abused them. As a Christian and having witnessed this first-hand, I want to be the voice of these children and their parents and provide the avenue for them to have a decent childhood and achieve their God-Given potential. In addition, I want to show them the love that they have never experience before by providing shelter, education and healthcare. It has been my desire and mission to help the many children who are orphaned and less fortunate and are living under these extraneous circumstances. I intended to establish an orphanage, a school and a mini clinic that will cater to the welfare of these orphans and less fortunate children and to prevent them from being enslave and mistreated.
