Christine+Lee

= Welcome to Christine's page!!! =

If you have some info on an orphan/orphans in Liberia, please tell me!!!
Thanks to Rachel that told me about an article that involves Liberia in the Orphaned children booklet

A good web site to find info on your country is World vision @ [|www.worldvision.org]

This is the website that I found an orphan from Liberia....... I found out all about Handful the orphan i have chosen and the wonderful things Liberia Mission has done in Liberia []

This is a website where you can adopt an orphan, has info on HIV/AIDS in Liberia and about a SOS Social centre in Monrovia (capital city of Liberia) []

Below is a website which tells you about the adoption agencies in specific countries (includes Ethiopia, Romania, Vietnam, Argentina, Thailand, Kazakhstan etc) []

=__Liberia Information__= Did you know what there are 19 orphanages in Liberia....19!!!!!! Nearly 300,000 refugees and internally displaced persons have returned to their homes in 2005 after the end of a brutal 14-year civil war. Peaceful national elections have been held, but the re-establishment of state authority and law and order has only just begun. The state of social services country-wide is still far below pre-war levels. More than one third of the population, and an even higher proportion of the country’s children, lives on less than $1 a day. __Issues facing children in Liberia__
 * Liberia’s infant and under-5 mortality rates remain among the five highest in the world. More than 15 per cent of children die before reaching their first birthday.
 * Preventable diseases like malaria and measles are among the leading killers of children. Malnutrition and respiratory infections kill thousands of children each year.
 * Nearly 40 per cent of children under age five suffer from stunting as a result of malnutrition.
 * Nearly 40 per cent of the population does not have access to safe water, and nearly 75 per cent does not have access to adequate sanitation.
 * Statistics show an HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 5.9 per cent; the actual rate is believed to be higher.
 * Armed conflict, HIV/AIDS and other diseases have orphaned an estimated 230,000 children.
 * Half a million children do not attend school. Two thirds of students are being taught by unqualified teachers. Girls’ enrolment rates lag far behind those for boys.
 * Despite the cessation of fighting, armed forces along the borders with Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire continue to recruit children into their ranks.

__Activities and results for children__ This is a sad short story about a Liberian used-to-be-orphan called Lydia....This will also be on my biography! For some, Paradise is a long lost garden, bound to a time when Man and God walked together. For others, Paradise is the promise of an idyllic afterlife. For Lydia Schatz, Paradise was a hell hole in the foothills of California's Central Valley. Lydia Schatz was one of three children adopted from Liberia in 2007, by Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz. Lydia Schatz is no more. On February 6 of this year, Lydia died on her way to a hospital. She had been beaten for hours with a length of plastic tubing, for the mispronunciation of the word “pulled”, during one of the children's homeschooling sessions. Lydia's sister, Zacharia received similar beatings that same day. Lucky for her, she made it to the hospital alive, and survived the torture her adoptive parents administered. The abuse of adopted children is not an uncommon phenomenon. Over the years, hundreds of cases have made the news. It is very likely many other abuses after adoption cases never became public. The abuse of Lydia and Zacharia is not even the only case of a Liberian child abused within an adoptive family. (This was from an article called “ Orphans in Paradise” by Kerry Semon and Niels Hoogeveen from the link [])  This is my biography on Handful Kollie, my orphan.. In Liberia, where Handful is from, there is an estimated amount of 250,000 orphans. Primary causes of orphaned children in Liberia are HIV/AIDS. Some orphans are orphans because they have been abandoned by their parents, lost their parents for health reasons and/or by violence. He got the name “Handful” because they believe that when he was born, he was so small he could fit in their hands. They found Handful at a displaced camp when they went to recruit more orphans, who needed help, to Liberia Mission. Liberia Mission believes that Handful’s birth date was October 26 1993.Handful lost both of his parents during the Silver War. Handful lived with his Aunt Tonwon at a refugee camp. No one knows if she was his real aunt or not but she took care of him even though it was hard for her to take care of her own family. When Aunt Tonwon heard that Handful had got accepted into Liberia Mission, where he could get education, she was glad to let him go. It was a big opportunity as not much children got to have education at his age in Liberia. He was the first young man to walk through the gates of Liberia Mission when it opened on Duport Road in November 2003. Handful gets education and also does exams/tests just like us. By the boys’ dorms there is a well, people get water from there. They wish they could dig a well for the girls too but they do not have enough money. Liberia Mission wish to help more children by building more dorms for shelter, but can’t at the moment without more generous donations from the public. Since Handful was young, he has wanted to be an agriculturist to improve the economic development of Liberia. He also wants to be an agriculturist so that they won’t have to depend on other countries for food. He is presently 15 turning 16.
 * UNICEF and its partners continue to provide basic and emergency health care to thousands of people living in camps for internally displaced populations.
 * Approximately 1 million children were vaccinated against polio and received vitamin A supplements. A total of 185 health facilities now perform routine immunizations. UNICEF also helped to rehabilitate the national cold-chain system.
 * UNICEF and its partners reactivated 27 health clinics and launched a measles vaccination program for all children under age five in three counties.
 * The World Food Programme partnered with UNICEF to treat more than 100,000 malnourished women and children in IDP camps.
 * Clean water and improved sanitation facilities benefited more than 200,000 students in over 1,000 schools.
 * UNICEF and its partners provided educational kits for more than 1,000 schools and supplies for nearly 350,000 children. Nearly 1,000 teachers (including 600 women) completed their primary school teacher training.
 * The National Assembly adopted a comprehensive girls’ education policy.
 * Nearly 12,000 children have been demobilized from fighting forces.
 * UNICEF and its partners have helped to train more than 1,500 new Liberian National Police officers in child rights and child protection