Liberia: “We Are Rebuilding a Reading Nation,” Says Wilnet Sara Gaye as Arise Impact Initiative Launches Bootcamp Cohort Two

Monrovia– Founder and Executive Director of Arise Impact Initiative, Wilnet Sara Gaye has launched the second cohort of the Young Readers Bootcamp, a literacy initiative aimed at building foundational reading skills among Liberian children.

With a firm voice and a passionate heart, Gaye stood before dozens of eager faces—children, parents, educators, and supporters—and declared, “This program is our collective response to a national need—the urgent need to restore the culture of reading, writing, research, and reflection among young people in Liberia.”

She further stressed, “But more than that, it is a space of discovery. A place where students like these ones will learn not just to read books, but to read the world around you—and respond to it with clarity, creativity, and courage.”

The Young Readers Bootcamp and Career Readiness Program was launched in 2024 as a rigorous, merit-based, and thought-provoking undertaking. It is a three-month reading, writing, and research-oriented program designed for high school students across Liberia. Its vision is to cultivate a generation of literate, articulate, and intellectually grounded young Liberians.

 The bootcamp combines phonics-based reading instruction with storytelling, creativity exercises, mentorship, and group reading sessions, research skills, critical thinking, and methods that Gaye says are “not just about decoding words, but about unlocking possibility.”

Further explaining, Gaye draws on her own childhood experience. She recalled an essay assignment in high school that left many students, including herself, staring blankly at the page. “Not because we had no ideas,” she explained, “but because we weren’t used to expressing ourselves or being guided on how to improve.”

That moment became a seed. Today, it blossomed into the Young Readers Bootcamp—a program designed to build not just literacy, but confidence, creativity, and leadership.

Gaye emphasized, “It showed me how much potential we young people carry, but how easily that potential can be buried when we do not have the right tools, guidance, or encouragement. It was in moments like that—small but significant—that the seed for this bootcamp was planted.

Accordingly, she said, young minds leaders that have blossomed, clearer voices, who are ready to rise are going to be transformed.

Said Gaye, “To our students: you are the reason we are here. This space was created for you—your growth, your dreams, your future. Show up, speak out, and soak in every moment.”

Delivering her keynote address, Liberian author and creative producer Shaona Cachelle, who candidly shared her childhood struggles with reading, emphasized the transformational power of literacy.

Cachelle praised Gaye’s vision as not just educational, but transformational: “This is not charity. This is resistance. This is justice.”

Cachelle explained that once she could not read aloud in college and still managed to write her first children’s book, it set the tone for an afternoon filled with inspiration and purpose.

“Reading gave me access to the world I wanted to live in,” Cachelle said. “And that’s what this bootcamp is doing for these children—it’s giving them access to themselves, to their stories, to their future.”

She captivated the audience with her testimony of perseverance. Faced with a broadcasting audition that demanded fluency and confidence in reading aloud, she pushed herself to practice day and night.

 “I would read billboards, newspapers, anything I could find—aloud,” she said. That commitment paid off. She aced her audition and, years later, became not just a speaker, but an author.

“My book is titled Who Said It Be Easy,” she said, proudly holding it up. “I went from struggling to read—to writing my own story.”

 She ended her talk by gifting copies of her book and merchandise to two young participants who demonstrated careful listening during an interactive quiz based on her speech.