DALLAS, USA – On July 25, the Liberian Community Association of Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex celebrated Liberia’s 168th Independence Day with a Counties Soccer and Kickball tournament, followed by a Counties Queen Contest and Banquet that evening. Held in the DFW suburbs of Euless and Bedford respectively, both celebrations were well attended by members of the approximately 10,000 Liberians who live in the DFW area.
LCA/DFW is an umbrella organization of all Liberian organizations in the DFW area. The organization holds events for the Liberian community and provides support through its Benevolence Committee.
“We help each other in the community,” Roslyn Harris, Assistant to the Financial Secretary and Treasurer of LCA/DFW, said. “For instance, if there’s death in the community, we help with that. Somebody’s in jail, any kind of problems, you know, the community, we help.”
The events were held in part to raise funds for a future community center to serve the needs of Liberians in DFW. While LCA/DFW has often rented spaces in order to help the community, they have yet to own their own space.
“Our goal for the association here is to own our own Liberian community center, so most of the funds that you see that we’re trying to raise today are going to go toward that project,” Stanley A. Gaye, President of LCA/DFW, said.
“The community center is about having a hall, having a library, having things for older folks to come to,” Gaye said.
President of LCA/DFW Stanley A. Gaye at the banquet. Photo: Roman Barnes-Walker
The center is also planned to have spaces for businesses to rent. Gunner Jones, Chairman of the Building Committee, said that these are mainly planned to be open for Liberian businesses, such as restaurants, but also law offices which cater primarily to Liberians with immigration issues. The center will also have a library and learning center, to help connect Liberians in America to their roots.
“It’s not just going to be a hall,” Gaye said. “It’s going to be a library where people can come and learn.”
Jones said that he estimated the cost of the center to be US$500,000, although even with US$100,000 LCA/DFW would work to put their plan in action.
LCA/DFW has a history of fundraising for the Liberian community, both in DFW and abroad. “Last year, the funds we raised from here, when Ebola broke, we were able to send over US$260,000 worth of equipment to ELWA Hospital in Liberia,” Gaye said.
The celebration began at the soccer field of Central Junior High School in Euless, where vendors prepared traditional Liberian food and visitors came to watch several men’s soccer teams, representing different Liberian counties, compete against one another. This was followed by a women’s kickball competition, where the teams were separated by locations in the DFW metroplex.
Vendors sell fish at the soccer tournament. Photo: Roman Barnes-Walker
“Usually in Liberia we have a County meet,” Gaye said. “So we have Grand Kru County, we have Montserrado County, we have Lofa County and Nimba County.”
When asked who she was rooting for, Harris said, “Montserrado County. That’s Monrovia, that’s where I’m from.”
Montserrado County won the men’s tournament. The Mid-Cities team won the kickball competition.
Bong, in Blue, plays against Grand Kru, in white. Photo: Roman Barnes-Walker
Also attending the events was the Liberian Nurses Association-DFW.
“This group was started back in 2014, and our goal, vision, is helping the healthcare system of Liberia, helping to improve quality care, sanitation, infection and all of that,” Carolyn Woahloe, President of LNA-DFW, said. “That’s our main goal and concern. Awareness, education, support, whichever area that we can help.”
“This year’s celebration is really important to us because of what happened last year with the Ebola issue,” Woahloe said. “For Liberia to still be standing today is only to the glory of God.”
“This organization is new,” Woahloe said. “It’s just a year old and a few months. We were really involved with Ebola awareness last year, and we’re still doing Ebola awareness, educating people about sanitation, hand washing, because education is really the key to everything.”
“We need every Liberian nurse in the Dallas community to come and join this organization, because with everybody together, we can do great things in Liberia in the health care system,” Woahloe said.
That evening in Bedford, LCA/DFW held the Liberian Independence Day Counties Queen Contest and Banquet. The theme of the banquet was “Embracing our Diversity for a Better Liberia.”
“As I look in the crowd, I can see several tribal Liberians, Liberians who are biracial, Liberians who are different,” Elaine Saba Peabody, Mistress of Ceremonies, said at the beginning of the evening’s festivities. “Let us start thinking about embracing the differences.”
For the Counties Queen Contest, six women, each representing multiple counties in Liberia, collected money over three separate rounds from the audience, with the one who collected the most money crowned Miss LCA/DFW Metroplex. After collecting over US$2,000 between the six of them, Princess Kartoe, representing Nimba County, Bong County and Sinoe County, was declared the winner of the competition.
Princess Kartoe, representing Nimba, Bong, and Sinoe, after being crowned Miss LCA/DFW. Photo: Roman Barnes-Walker
Also performing at the banquet were singers Theo Doe, Cupid Porte, and musical group OneCopy with their rousing song, “Shake Your Waist.”
The Guest Speaker of the Event was Eric Wowoh, the founder of Change Agent Network, an organization that provides food, plumbing, education and volunteer opportunities in Liberia.
Eric Wowoh of Change Agent Network at the Banquet. Photo: Roman Barnes-Walker
Born in Zorzor, Lofa County, Wowoh was captured by rebel soldiers at 12 years old in 1989 during the Liberian Civil War. Beaten, tortured and forced to become a child soldier, he finally able to go free, becoming a refugee in exile for 14 years. In a refugee camp in Liberia, he learned how to use the only computer at the camp and trained the other refugees as well. After being sent to Lafayette, Louisiana by the American Refugee Resettlement Program, he founded CAN.
Today CAN provides several service and educational programs. These include the Changers School System, which provides nursery through 12th grade education in Montserrado County, Lofa County, and Bong County. The schools have science and computer labs and have purposely attractive architectural environments. Currently there is work to build more schools in Bomi County, Grand Kru County, and Gbarpolu County.
The schools offer low fees, to attract students “regardless of economic status,” Wowoh said. Their goal is to decentralize education, “instead of [students migrating] to Monrovia.” By 2020, Wowoh hopes to have schools in every county in Liberia. CAN also plans on building a US$1.4 million university in Lofa County by 2017, with colleges of business, agriculture, science and technology, nursing, and linguistics and cultural studies. It would be the first of its kind in the county.
CAN also engages in the Clean Water Project, which constructs complete plumbing systems at schools through the volunteer work of plumbers and electricians from the US. “You cannot get anything done because there is no infrastructure,” Wowoh said.
In addition, CAN has the Yassah’s Sisters Livelihood Program, which provides tools and seeds to rural women in Lofa County in exchange for a return of seeds with the next crop. This is done at no monetary benefit to the organization.
“Even though I inherited a broken nation, that’s not what I want to pass down,” Wowoh said. Stating that living in America can be desensitizing to expatriate Liberians, Wowoh said, “Our culture, we’ve been trained nothing goes for nothing. Where’s my cut?”
“It’s not enough for us to pray for Liberia,” Wowoh said. “It’s not just enough for us to wish them well.”
“Let us take our eyes off of our small, small story, and focus on the bigger story,” Wowoh said.
CAN is currently working to raise US$100,000 in order to raise school fees for 1,000 students for the next school semester. When schools in Liberia closed because of Ebola, CAN continued to pay their teachers for the five months they were shut down. On the closure of schools by the Liberian Ministry of Education this last year, Wowoh said, “When you take a decision like that, we are not going to be able to pay for teachers, because the kids won’t be able to pay.”
“That minister does not have a child going to school in Liberia today,” Wowoh said, in speculation.
OneCopy performs at the banquet. Photo: Roman Barnes-Walker
Although many groups which attended were serious in nature, the festivities were jovial as they went on into the early hours of the next morning. “As you can see, it’s a joyous occasion,” Gaye said. “We’re all having fun.”
“We’re far away from home, but home is always home,” Gaye said.
For more information on LCA/DFW, visit their Facebook page or visit their website at http://lcadfwmetro.org/. For more information on LNA-DFW, contact Carolyn Woahloe at cwehyee2001@yahoo.com For more information on CAN visit their Facebook page or visit their website at http://www.canintl.org/.
