At a glance: Liberia

Real lives

Weah speaks out about child soldiers

© UNICEF/HQ04-0032/Nesbitt

UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador George Weah plays in an exhibition football match between two children’s teams, at the Interim Care Centre of the Don Bosco Homes near Monrovia.

UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and international football star George Weah was in New York last week for the United Nations conference on Liberia. His visit came on the heels of a week-long stay in Liberia where he met with former child soldiers and hundreds of other children.

Once back in New York, Mr. Weah spoke about his trip to his home country and addressed some of the actions he believes are necessary to help the children of Liberia, who have suffered through 15 years of war.

“The kids want to be in school. Today they sit on the floor with no benches, but they don’t even care about the benches, they just want to educate themselves,” said Mr. Weah. “They are willing to go to school, but we need the facilities for them to go to school and UNICEF is doing very well in helping us in that capacity.” 

UNICEF’s support in Liberia has included rebuilding schools, a $6 million ‘Back-to-School’ initiative, and providing thousands of ‘School-in-a-box’ kits that contain materials for students and teachers.

“The organization is working in Liberia and everybody is helping us. The more we give, the more we offer a legacy, a future, to these kids through education. I know it is not an easy task, but it’s not impossible,” he said.

Playing sports helps kids heal

George Weah began playing football on the streets of Liberia as a child. Today he is an internationally acclaimed player who believes that sports are essential to healing the war scars of the children, especially former child soldiers.

“Sports unify people. If we want to go into the direction of unity, we have to get together and play sports,” said Mr. Weah.

“Because when we play sports - we have opponents and we practice good behaviour on the playing field and there we find a way to win – but, we also have fun and sports are very important, they help sensitize feelings and through that you can bring about peace,” he said.

Mr. Weah also said that he hopes to see more girls playing football in Liberia. “They have a desire to get into the game,” he said. “They have the capability to be competitive with the boys too. When I was in Liberia this time, the girls played football too, and they should continue with the sport.

“Sports are important to the peace process. Through games like football we can do something to help heal the minds of the children,”  he added.

What do the children need?

During the early part of 2003, as many as 20,000 children had been recruited into warring factions against their wills. Evidence shows that child soldiers are often drugged by their captors to make them ‘brave,’ to follow orders or dull them into submission. The drugs also help quell fear, hunger and loneliness. As the war ends, these children will need many things to help reintegrate them into society. 

“They need to go to school, they need jobs,” said Mr. Weah. “They need facilities for these things. They need to learn trades.  One thing we also need to do, in order to rehabilitate them, is to get them off drugs, which is a hard task for us. To get them off drugs they will need to go to clinics and flush the drugs from their system.

“You know they are very young  - these former child soldiers - and they talk about going back to the community and they hope that people will accept them. What happened to them is not their fault and I don’t think they should be blamed for their actions. We need to condemn those who put them into the situation of war,” he said.

Worldwide attention on Liberia

Mr. Weah attended the United Nations two-day Conference on Liberia last week. The conference was intended to demonstrate international solidarity with Liberia and help raise funds for the country.

“I feel a special thanks to UNICEF and the United Nations, which gave me the opportunity to be part of this all-important conference on Liberia,” said Mr. Weah. “I think every Liberian will be proud and happy about what occurred at the United Nations. We are appreciative of the international community. Kofi Annan, everyone, has put his or her life on the line to save the Liberian nation. UNICEF is also helping to make things okay in our country and we are grateful.

“In the past we fought ourselves, now people are telling us there is no need to do that and we have people who are helping us make peace. Liberians will go home happy because it was a positive conference,” he said.