Schools are closed in Liberia. Our Hope International students shelter at home waiting, like so many of us, for some normalcy to return. Our principal and staff are trying as best they can, under quarantine, to check in on them.
Just outside the school wall lives one of our students Eric. We were told how much harder life is for him now.
Eric shared,
“I am missing my teacher and my friends very much. I want to be a banker when I grow up. Right now, I and my family are not getting much to eat. We only eat to live.”
While we can all relate to missing our normal life, I have yet to experience the feeling of only eating to live.
During normal times, life in Liberia is unbearably hard. During these times of quarantine, it seems impossible. The daily bustle of the marketplace is silenced. The gathering of daily bread is not possible. When we say that “We are each other’s Safety Net,” we mean literally just that. No other net is going to appear for Eric. We know that. His family knows that. So, they wait and wonder and hope.
You have sustained Eric and all our students and staff over the years. You continue to pay our teachers, allowing them to put food on the table while schools are closed. You have made the school a community hub, dispersing rice to Eric’s family and the surrounding community. You have been the safety net.
Like all organizations doing good work, we too wait, we wonder, we HOPE. We need your support now, as much as ever. You can help us keep our doors open (figuratively) so the school will be ready to receive Eric and the others (literally).
We are so grateful to you today and every day.
Jackie Frazier
Executive Director
The Hope Project