Change We Believe In

I can shape the city of my dream through working with other young people of my age range in creating awareness about issues that are currently of significant importance to our communities, nation and world at large such as clean air, sustaining the environment through creating awareness about safe and sustainable human practices that can reduce the waste in our communities, peer-to-peer education about drugs abuse, gangs, teenage pregnancy, domestic violence that has taken our city, growing and eating locally as oppose to traveling several miles to purchase our food stuff, redirecting our consumption pattern about energy needs and always been an example about whatever I talk to my friends about. Most of the problems in my city today are associated with the issues listed above. It is my hope that through this paper, youth within my area or other communities will get to understand that today’s leadership have failed us and it is only when we take out leadership roles today through acquir

Introduction I arrived in Ghana on the 5th June, 1995 with my two sisters and brother on the Buduburam refugee camp located in the Central Region of Gomoa District about 45 minutes drive away from Accra the capital of Ghana. My mother arrived in the United States of America on the 16th March, 2004 from the Republic of Ivory Coast through the assistance of the Lutheran Immigrants and Refugee Services. During the civil war in Liberia, me, my brother and sisters were separated from our mother. After series of interviews and Medical-Screening with the Overseas Processing Entity (OPE-Ghana) in collaboration with the Church World Services in Accra, Ghana, the Immigration and Neutralization Services of the United States of America, the International Organization For Migration (IOM) and the Lutheran Immigrants and Refugees Services (LIRS), I was approved to be resettled with my mother in the United States of America. As such, on Monday the 11th December, A. D. 2006 marked the climax of my stay

The Goals of LYDIA are to help former refugee youths heal from trauma through art and community, to assist all young people who deserve to get their education and to have dreams for the future, and to create art that allows people to feel seen and heard in the world. LYDIA's mission is put into action through two different programs, the Women’s Scholarship Fund and Youth House. The Women’s Scholarship Fund allows otherwise resource-less former refugee girls to pay their school fees, buy uniforms, and pay for food, transportation, and housing while they are getting their education. Youth House is a home base for teens where they can take part in hip-hop, theatre, and art after-school programs, youth groups, community building programs, and AIDS awareness groups. LYDIA hopes to give a generation of children the skills and support to get back on the path of rediscovering their identity and creating possibilities for the future. In 2006, the NYU based Fifth Project Theatre Company and

Congressman Keith EllisonFor Immediate Release Contact: Rick JauertFriday, March 20, 2009 202.225.4755 or 202-309-3413 Rick.Jauert@mail.house.gov Ellison Applauds White House Liberian Extension Will Work for Path to Residency and CitizenshipWashington, D.C. – Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minneapolis) welcomed President Obama’s decision today to extend Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) status by 12 months to Liberians residing legally in the United States. There are approximately 3,600 Liberians in the United States on a temporary status including more than 1,000 Minnesotans. “I am grateful that President Obama has granted our Liberian neighbors extended DED status,” Representative Ellison said. “This was the right thing to do to keep families together and it embraces the fundamental foundation of an immigrant nation.”Liberians have lived and worked in Minnesota si