Mount Barclay – As part of its Easter giveaways, the Children Earth Angel Foundation has donated to the Children Rescue Center, an orphanage in Mount Barclay, Montserrado County, assorted items.
Report by Gerald C. Koinyeneh, [email protected]
The items including book bags, footwear and teddy bears were distributed to the children as they queued in for their package.
According to the founder and executive officer of CEAF, Massa M. Kromah, the gesture is her organization’s way of identifying with the kids during the Easter celebration; adding: “It is not only about assisting them with their material needs, but making them feel as normal kids.”
“I think what matters most is making them feel loved. That’s why we organized games like the bag race, spoon race, the egg hunt, football and volleyball to make them happy and appreciate life.
Also speaking, the director of the orphanage, Alexander Clarke, noted the gesture was not a surprise as CEAF has always remembered the kids.
Clarke explained that the center last November received two solar panels that are providing electricity for them.
“Sister Massa [Kromah] and her organization have been a great source of help and inspiration to our center. The Mount Barclay-Fendell area is in darkness, and there was an SOS call to her; she came in and saw that the place was definitely in need of light,” Clarke recounted.
He continued: “She promised us that she was coming to lighten the area and she came. She wanted to make the children have access to light and study their lessons. To our surprise, we saw GIZ coming in with the solar plates and installed them over the two houses-both the boys and girls dormitories.”
The ‘Light for Life Project’ was launched by CEAF at the end of 2018 and provided electricity for 200 school children at four orphanages in Monrovia and its environs including the Mother Victoria Thomas Orphanage of New Matadi, Comfort K. Toe Orphanage in Brewerville, Children Rescue Center in Mount Barclay and Children Future Orphanage in Kakata.
The project, according to Ms. Kromah, was aimed at enabling the children at the orphanages have light to study at night.
Meanwhile, the Director of the Children Rescue Center has called on all well-meaning Liberians and humanitarian organizations to follow the footsteps of CEAF to help the orphanage.
According to him, the center hosts 65 children including orphans and abandoned children and is surviving through help from government and humanitarian organizations including Christian Aid and CEAF.
He narrated that five of the children will be graduating from high school this year. They dream of entering college.
But making that dream come true for the children, Clarke said is a serious challenge to the institution.
“We are praying that they will have sponsors; that God will work through somebody to sponsor them at college. They have dreams but as things look, their chances of realizing their dream at the moment is challenging. They all want go to school to follow their education. We are looking for sponsors for them,” he averred.
About the Children Rescue Center
According to Clarke, the Orphanage was established by his late parents during the first Liberian civil war and since then the place has been a refuge for children who lost their parents, abandoned and rejected.
The center is currently being run by him and his siblings, and despite the huge task in managing it, they are determined to keep making it a place of refuge and hope for the children and as well as keeping their late parents’ legacy alive.