Organisation’s name: Church Aid Inc

Address / contact names

Church Aid Inc

Reverend Kortu K. Brown, Chairman, Board of Directors

Mrs. Lucy M. Moore, Project Director

Mrs. Priscilla Entsua, Training Supervisor

Mrs. Wiyata Nimley, Head, Peacebuilding & HIV/AIDS Unit

Mr. George Entsua, Planning Officer

Mr. Stephen C. Parker, Micro Credit Manager

Ms Comfort Gono, Head, Literacy & Civic Education Unit

Mr. Joseph Kandarkai, Agriculture Officer

Telephone: 231-6 557286

Fax: c/o 227686

Email: [email protected]

Organisation’s background and achievements (aims, activities, experience) (in no more than 150 words):

CAI is an empowerment program for war-affected women and children at the community level through her Community Women Training Center [CWTC]. It provides small-skills training in project phases including micro-credit to about seven hundred (700) previously supported small business women to enable them restart their businesses destroyed by fighting in Liberia and graduates of the skills training program to enable them start-small businesses to support their families in 2004 alone, primary and secondary school that has enrolled more than five hundred (500) vulnerable, war-affected children on tuition-free instruction; trauma counselling and HIV/AIDS awareness through her psychosocial care program for rape victims and other vulnerable women, literacy training every four (4) months for about 40 (forty) women who cannot read and write; community health services to beneficiaries including rape victims, vulnerable children, vegetable production, animal multiplication, etc. As Liberia prepares for elections in 2005 that will help restore the country to normalcy, there exists a need to engage empowerment initiatives that are complementary to the efforts to normalize the country and re-establishing the role and place of the church in these endeavours.

Project title: Liberia Community Empowerment Project (LCEP)

Amount requested:

In which country and town(s) will the project take place? The project will take place in Liberia in the town of Brewerville, MONTSERRADO County, about 13 miles west of Monrovia and in two other towns northwest of Brewerville; namely: Royesville and Suehn/Mecca in BOMI County

When should the project begin and end? The project should begin in October 2005 and end in November 2006

Give a summary of the project including rationale, goal, objectives, main activities, beneficiaries and outputs:

Rationale:

After 15 years of civil war, Liberia is destroyed and its citizens are economically incapacitated. Churches and communities have been badly affected and need to be rehabilitated and/or reactivated. The more than one million people displaced both internally and externally are returning to the prewar habitats and the need exist to help restore some basic social services including rehabilitating the agriculture sector and rebuilding personal economies, amongst others.

Goal:

To empower vulnerable community women and other local residents through agriculture, education, counseling, micro-credit, literacy and skills training, etc.

Objectives:

Main Activities:

A.     Beneficiaries registration

B.     Procurement of materials

C.     Staff Orientation

D.     Training, Peace-building, Literacy sessions

E.      Monitoring

F.      Graduation by phases

G.     Provide loans

H.     Evaluation

I.         Reporting

Beneficiaries: About 1000 through direct assistance and community awareness – HIV/AIDS, general counseling, seeds distribution and initiatives.

Outputs:

A.     Beneficiaries trained in life skills and economically empowered

B.     Prostitution and threat of HIV/AIDS undermined

C.     Women knowledgeable about their rights, can read & write

Outline the background to project including relevant political context and the issue(s) the project is designed to address:

The civil crisis in Liberia has wreaked physical and psychosocial havoc on the well being of Liberians. All sectors of the population have been adversely affected by this all-consuming conflict; a conflict which has destroyed, not only the physical infrastructure of the nation, but also is socio political structures; a war bereft of lofty ideals and perpetrated by warlords and boy soldiers whose ideas of government is control and subjugation of the ordinary person to their wicked whims and caprices. The Liberian civil war has been so dehumanising and has had such a disorganizing impact on the nation as a whole, that it has been aptly described as “a war without a purpose in a country that has lost its identity”.

In such conditions of social upheavals and disorganization like the case of Liberia, the weaker members of society tend to be most severely victimized. This was the exact case of women and children in Liberia. They were uprooted and looted, sometimes raped and despised. In some cases, women were often forced to become servants, cooks and sex mates in order to survive and to safeguard their lives or their families. If they refuse, they became prone to violent acts of physical and mental abuse including rape.

The civil war has therefore compounded the state of ordinary Liberians. Their rights were incessantly violated up until the deployment of the United Nations Peace Keeping Force (UNMIL) in the last quarter of 2004. With their properties destroyed, family members killed in some instances and a very weak civil society in the rural areas, amongst others, Church Aid has during the past six (6) years actively participated in efforts to bring about a normal, peaceful and enlighten Liberia through the training and economic empowerment of community women and school-dropped-out girls in life skills, provided peace and civic education, sensitizing them about their rights as Liberians to enable them play their role as citizens in building a healthy democracy in Liberia.

State the overall aim of the project (what you are trying to achieve in no more than one sentence) and list up to four main objectives:

Overall Aim of Project:

The goal of the project is to help empower women through small-skills and literacy training, micro-credit aid, civic education to returning, disadvantaged, poor and vulnerable women, school dropped-out-girls and local communities; agriculture assistance to enable them support themselves and lead normal peaceful lives again.

Five Main Objectives:

1.      To train community women and school-dropped-out girls in marketable life skills including sewing, pastry, beauty culture, tye-dye, vegetable production, animal multiplication, carpentry, masonry, typing, etc;

2.      To assist local communities rehabilitate their food production capacities through the multiplication and distribution of seeds and animals

3.      To provide peace education through trauma counseling, HIV/AIDS awareness, literacy, etc;

4.      To economically empower beneficiaries to maintain their families and undermine prostitution and the threat to HIV/AIDS infection; 

5.      To sensitize church and community people about their role as citizens in the rebuilding a healthy democratic nation for all Liberians, etc

Describe the main activities planned under this project:

1.      Counseling & HIV/AIDS Awareness

Counseling treatment requires about eight (8) sessions in a period of three to four months.  Peace workers are also STI/HIV/AIDS counselors who will conduct their awareness through group and individual discussions including the posting of handout bills and posters. Counselors will permanently station in areas of work. About four (4) Trauma Counselors will be hired, each assign about 150 clients over a 3-phase program.  Counselors shall be supervised by a Clinical Coordinator, who shall be responsible, to check work-plans, visit fieldwork, appraise performance and make monthly, interim and annual reports on this component of the project.

2.      Medical Relief Assistance

During counseling, beneficiaries with ailments will be transferred to health unit for medical treatment. Critical cases will be sent to one of the main health centers in the Capital of Liberia, Monrovia. The project will provide drugs and in cases of inadequate medical assistance or capacity on the part of health workers, the project will finance laboratory, surgical and extra non-surgical medical attention. Area of medical relief to be covered includes (a) Preventive Medicine and health education, and (b) Symptomatic Treatment – anti-malarial, anti-diarrhea, fungicides, anti-hermetic, vitamins, ORS, FESO4, Folic and other medical drugs. [This component is not for the support of WFD].

3.      Skills Training

Training will be in (a) Tye-Dye (b) Soap and (c) Health Products, amongst others. A training course will take 4 months and each phase will cover 150-200 persons. A Head Trainer and three (6) trainers will train beneficiaries seven hours daily for five days a week for training period. Areas of training cover tye-dye, pastry, health products, cosmetology, basic agriculture, sewing, carpentry, masonry, typing, etc

4.      Micro-enterprise development

In order to undermine chances of relapse of detraumatized victims and ensure that women are economically empowered in Liberia, project intends as is the custom to provide small funds to enable beneficiaries procure materials to start a small business to enable them support their families. Otherwise, idleness and prostitution sets in and the efforts to help the victims lead normal peaceful lives again are undermined. Funds will therefore be required for six hundred (600) clients. Beneficiaries will be given basic orientation in small-business management and provide amount stipulated per persons. Project will monitor each business supported through regular visits, reporting, etc. A Micro Credit Manager and 3 field monitors will manage this aspect of the program

5.      Community Agriculture

About 85% of Liberians live on subsistence farming as a means of livelihood. With the uprooting of the rural population, the country’s agriculture base has been undermined contributing to large unemployment and idleness as thousands clustered in displaced and refugee camps for a decade and a half. This project seeks to multiply and distribute seeds and animals to rural farmers to enable reactivate their farming activities that will eventually contribute to supporting their families and the food security of the country.

6.       Sensitization Workshops

Project will run community-based workshops to sensitize churches, communities and other people on their roles in the rebuilding of their country and to excite them to actively engage in peace-building and civic activities in their communities. These workshops will be conducted by the Literacy & Education Unit and will include issues on the promotion of the rule of law and democracy in Liberia to undermine chances of civil war and human suffering in the country again; economic empowerment; community advocacy, etc.

List outputs to be delivered (e.g. reports, seminars, workshops, publications etc.) and project outcomes (e.g. new legislation, improved skills, increased capacity, enhanced awareness):

Outputs to be delivered

1.      Training sessions to be carried

2.      Counseling sessions to be conducted

3.      Literacy classes to be conducted

4.      Seeds and animals produced and distributed

5.      Workshops on health education – HIV/AIDS, Hygiene, etc; microenterprise development and women rights sensitization to be conducted

6.      Loans to be provided to beneficiaries

7.      Reports to be published for donors, community and society in general

Project Outcomes

1.      Beneficiaries awareness on HIV/AIDS, community initiatives to be enhanced

2.      Beneficiaries will be given improved skills in marketing in small business

3.      Beneficiaries’ literacy capacity will be increased when they learn how to read and write for the first time thus increasing their chances of understanding community and national issues to enable them participate actively.

What mechanisms will be used to ensure that project impact is sustained after project completion? What will the longer-term impact of the project be?

The project will work towards its sustainability through the production and sales of products i.e. bread, soap, tie-dye, farm harvests, etc from training session. The center will also espoused itself to the provision of special services, i.e. catering for a church, school and programs, amongst others as part of efforts to source funds for project.

Micro loans will be revolving and a small monitoring fee of about 16% charged on each project to help off-set future cost of monitoring i.e. staff, stationery, workshops, etc.

In the long-term, training fees could be charged aside from registration and income generation projects engaged to support the program

What are the main risks to this project? What measures would you undertake to manage these risks?

Three major assumptions have been identified by the project:

A.     Security – that the security situation will improve in Monrovia to allow for the intervention proposed: (i) Enable NGOs reach beneficiaries, (ii) Provide beneficiaries access to aid, (iii) Protection of aid workers and inputs, etc.

B.     Funding – that funds will be provided timely to help stem the precarious humanitarian crisis looming in Liberia