May 2018
Inside the sweltering rental car, Juliana sits wedged between her parents in the rear seat. The vehicle zigs and zags along the bumpy road, trying to avoid the large pot holes. No one speaks. We pass small villages of one-room, mud-brick houses with warped, rusty metal roofs. The landscape alternates between remnants of rainforest, parcels of land cleared for cultivation, and tidy groves of rubber trees and African oil palms.

Juliana is thirteen years old. Her stern gaze is fixed on the road ahead. Her facial expression is blank. There is not the hint of a smile.

What is she thinking?  What is she feeling?

Juliana is at the heart of this 45-minute trip from Kolahun District to Voinjama: She is deaf. 

In recent months, both James Kpangbai, RHL’s Field Coordinator, and Margret Gieraths-Nimene, RHL’s then Country Program Director, have been exploring suitable schooling options for Juliana. In Liberia, schools for the deaf are rare. Although RHL has supplied Juliana and her family with sign language books and although she’s enrolled in a conventional local school, it’s clear she needs more resources. 

A nun, Sister Ann Kelly, had recently told James about a new school for the deaf in Voinjama. Today we’re going with Juliana and her parents to visit this school.

In Voinjama, we stop to get final directions to the school. I catch a glimpse of Juliana; her face still emotionless. Is she nervous? Scared?  Apprehensive? Excited? Unsure? Eager? Reluctant?

March 2019
It’s been seven months since Juliana enrolled at the Voinjama Academy for the Deaf. James in Kolahun has called to tell me he’s sent photos of some of RHL’s beneficiaries, including Juliana.

I open the file of photos and read the first caption: “Juliana and her school mates.” She has friends, she is connected to the world through relationships. And she’s smiling! A sign of HOPE.  

​It is with great sadness that we report the death of our friend and brother, Francis Kanneh, on January 31, 2019. Francis was a teacher who for the past several years served as RESTORE HOPE: LIBERIA's head tutor and head of our after-school tutoring and adult literacy programs. In spite of increasing health challenges, Francis was ever present, always with an easy smile, always helpful no matter the task. He was courageous and dedicated and was beloved by the children, the RHL families, and his friends and colleagues.
 
Francis was originally from the Vahun District of Liberia; he grew up and attended primary and secondary school in Kailahun, Sierra Leone. He received his initial teachers’ certificate from Bonumbu Teacher’s College in Sierra Leone. Later, after two years at the International Rescue Committee’s Refugee School in Kountaya, Guinea, during the Liberian Civil War, he earned a Diploma for teaching the Integrated Course of Study based on the Secondary School Curricula for Liberia & Sierra Leone.
 
After the war, Francis returned to Kailahun where he taught at St. Joseph’s Primary School for 7 years, and then for another 3 years at the Musu Kanneh Public School in Kolba City, Kolahun, Lofa County, Liberia.
 
Poor health forced Francis into an early “retirement” from public school teaching but did not slow him down much. He joined RESTORE HOPE: LIBERIA in 2013 and continued his teaching and meeting with our many students, parents and caregivers, and many area teachers and school principals. His responsibilities as our “Principal” included assessing student needs and coordinating our tutorial curriculum with the curriculum in more than a dozen different schools in the Kolahun District.
 
RHL and the Kolahun community have lost a friend and dedicated teacher. But we are heartened that Francis' spirit and determination live on in the members of the communities we serve who will take this work forward. His memory prompts us all to rededicate our efforts.
 
To all our friends and colleagues: you may not have known Francis, but when you see his work, see him in action among the vulnerable kids and families of Kolahun, in rural Lofa County, Liberia, you will recognize the face of dedication and service, compassion and resilience, a man who was gentle yet strong and determined. And you'll see the work of recovery and development based on a holistic, community-centered, grassroots model that has emerged in the aftermath of war and disease.
 
We hope you’ll enjoy this short video vignette of Francis' work and time with RHL in Kolahun.

Dear Colleague,
​
For the past 12 years, I have worked as a physician providing humanitarian aid in response to complex emergencies — war and post-conflict contexts, disease outbreaks, natural disasters — in settings as diverse as Liberia, the Sudan/Darfur/Eastern Chad region, Ethiopia, Libya and Afghanistan. I have come to admire and love the people I have encountered for their courage and resilience in the face of unimaginable challenges and suffering.

These challenges test the capacity of every humanitarian worker to meet the needs of those they serve. And for millennia this work has challenged the healer, as it challenges me now, with the question, “How shall I respond to the suffering in the world?” The work you are learning about now is, in part, my response.

Through my work, one thing has become abundantly clear: When the emergency is over, there is no greater gift that we can give than to assist communities in grass-roots development, empowering them to rebuild the healthcare, water & sanitation, education and economic development systems that will take them into the future. This is not “aid” in the traditional sense, which often fosters dependency and corruption. Community development is transformative, giving people the ability to become their own agents of change. Such communities are healthy, productive, equitable, secure and peaceful. The capacity and potential of every human being is maximized. Every life matters.​

That is the vision of RESTORE HOPE and our flagship program, RESTORE HOPE: LIBERIA.

The needs are so great… I can’t begin to tell you about all the ways your gifts save lives. You can learn much more on our website.

I have seen firsthand how our donors’ contributions change lives. The work is challenging, but together we will meet our pledge: Healthcare & promotion to save lives.  Education to provide knowledge.  And opportunity that builds communities and a nation.

Please join our team now and give what you can. We are grateful for your support.

We wish you and your family the Blessings of the season.

​Sincerely,

​Robert M Rufsvold, MD
Co-founder, Senior Advisor, President of the Board, RESTORE HOPE

When people leave Liberia, whether they were born and grew up there, or lived and worked there for a brief period of time, they leave behind a little piece of their heart. They take with them the heartfelt memories of another life, of people, family who are gone, and a place that cannot be forgotten, though some of those memories are difficult.
 
Some were forced to leave family behind in times of bitter struggle. Some left to pursue education, some because of war, disease, or to seek a better livelihood. Some left at the end of their work or volunteer assignment.
 
Though many do not return, many do, the attachments and memories bringing them “home” to Mama Liberia. They return to provide continued support to their families, their communities. Others to be of service to those communities that “adopted” them.
 
RESTORE HOPE: LIBERIA has been organized as a community of support by a number of those “returnees” who will always love Liberia and her people.
 
We’re very pleased to announce that two very prominent Sons of Kolahun have agreed to join our Advisory Board. Dr. Andrew Cole, M.D., and Vamba Sherif will be known to many and their stories may be familiar. We share their short biographies here.
 
And, as a special bonus, Vamba Sherif has written a short account of his very vivid memories of Dr. Cole, carried in his heart since he was a young boy in Kolahun, for many years and across thousands of miles. We’re grateful that Kolahun and RESTORE HOPE: LIBERIA have brought them together again.

Gonzaga University, Dr. Cole studied medicine and received his medical degree from the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington, in 1972. He completed his internship and residency, training that included medicine, surgery and pediatrics, in Youngstown, Ohio.
 
Dr. Cole provides RESTORE HOPE with extensive, deep, pre-war history and knowledge of health care in Liberia and Kolahun. Following two years of post-graduate medical education in medicine and surgery, Dr. Cole returned to Liberia in 1974. For the next three years he served as the Medical Director at Curran Lutheran Hospital in Zorzor.
 
Recognizing the need to improve pediatric care in Liberia, Dr. Cole returned to the US to complete a full pediatric residency, learning skills he knew were so needed back in Liberia.
 
Returning to Liberia once again in 1981, he served as the staff pediatrician at Phebe Hospital in Bong County until 1983. His work then took him full circle as he returned to Lofa County where he served as the County Health Officer for Lofa County, and as Medical Director of Kolahun Hospital from 1983 to 1990.

​Dr. Cole’s professional experience has also included Lassa Fever Control efforts in Liberia (1982-1990), planning and evaluating community health and financial programs in Lofa Co., and participant in the WHO World Health Assembly (1983-1989) and as WHO Board Member (1988-1989).
 
The outset of the Liberian Civil War forced Dr. Cole and his family to flee Kolahun and the country, leaving behind a beloved community. Though he returned to the United States to live and practice medicine, a piece of his heart remained in Kolahun. He and his wife have returned to the community on numerous service missions over the years.
 
Currently Dr. Cole provides Family Medicine and Pediatrics services for the community of New Castle, Pennsylvania.

Vamba lost his mother in the Liberian civil war. His memories of her and of his boyhood in Kolahun remain vivid today. His family kept a library full of ancient manuscripts which were handed down from one generation to another. His father, a great scholar, was the custodian of these manuscripts. These manuscripts were burned in the war.

​While living in a refugee camp in The Netherlands, at the height of the war in Liberia, Vamba decided to attempt to explain the complexity of his country’s history to himself by trying to write about it. He wrote Land of my fathers, a novel about the founding of Liberia with the return of the freed men and women from America to Africa in the 19th century.

Vamba Sherif is a lawyer by training and has written many novels and edited the anthology, Black: Afro-European literature in The Netherlands and Belgium.
 
Besides his love of writing and his collection of rare books on Africa, Sherif has developed a passion for films, which he reviews. He’s ambassador for the Dutch Refugee Council. He has written for The New York Times, Long Cours in France and Kulturaustauch in Germany, and many other newspapers and magazines. He divides his time between The Netherlands and Liberia.

I met Dr. Andrew Cole in my early teens in Kolahun, Lofa county, Liberia. It was not so much a meeting as a glance from the distance. I was standing in a long queue along the main road in Kolahun, together with students from other schools who had turned out in droves to welcome him. I saw Dr. Cole alight from the car, and I felt at that moment that he was the sum of my dreams. At no time did the profession of medicine become so attractive to a child than at the sight of a man who had been educated in America and had returned home to help his people. I wanted to be like him, to know him and to learn from him. It seemed a far-fetched dream for a child of my circumstances, but not impossible.
 
My daily life in Kolahun consisted of waking at dawn in Sherif Quarter to sweep the compound, fetch water from the well nearby, and then head to the school up the hill, in the direction of Halaypo.
 
My brother, Vamuyan Sherif, and the people of Kolahun had built the school after his return from his studies in Egypt. The role my brother would play in my life would help bring me closer to Dr. Cole. Through his efforts, I won a scholarship to attend high school in Kuwait. From there, I began to correspond with Dr. Cole, who was generous enough to respond to my letters. I remember presenting him with a special pen which I had won in a school essay competition in Kuwait.
 
It was clear that one day I would become a doctor and follow in the footsteps of my hero. But then war broke out in Liberia and in Kuwait, almost at the same time, depriving me of the possibility to pursue my dream. The war left me only with memories of a place and a land that had been altered forever. My attempt to hold onto those memories and onto faces like those of Dr. Cole and many others, including my family, made me a writer. Writing for me is primarily an effort to keep those memories alive.
 
Dr. Cole succeeded in transforming a small hospital into one of the best in the country. People came from far and near to be admitted to the hospital. He was and still is one of our greatest prides.

Healthcare is scarce in Liberia.
 
How scarce? The populations of the city of Los Angeles and the country of Liberia are roughly the same size, around 4 million. Los Angeles has about 30,000 physicians, Liberia 300.
 
Imagine caring for a chronically ill or disabled child in such a place.

RESTORE HOPE: LIBERIA understands these challenges. We support the most vulnerable children in the Kolahun community, a rural village in northern Liberia. Many of these children have significant health needs.  So, we have a full-time registered nurse, Gladys Zarbay, RN, BSN, MPH, on staff to monitor their well-being.  Gladys, as our health and nutrition coordinator, is based full-time in Kolahun.

Leaders and other respected members in the Kolahun community identify which children and households need support, based on our enrollment criteria: orphaned, Ebola survivors, chronically ill or disabled.
 
An integral part of our health program is home visits, which allows us to assess the children’s physical and emotional health, as well as an opportunity to consider their home environment and their relationship with their caregiver. Psychosocial support is offered when needed as well as referrals to the local hospital.
 
A core component of our model is coordination with local systems. We don’t build separate clinics; rather we find ways to strengthen the existing healthcare system. We coordinate care with the hospital and ensure that follow-up appointments are made and that medications are properly administered. 

We are also growing our efforts to offer preventive health education within the community. Last year, at the request of education authorities in Kolahun, RESTORE HOPE organized a workshop for young adults interested in teaching sexual and reproductive health sessions at local schools. Liberia has a very high teen pregnancy rate. By the age of 19, three of every five girls are pregnant (UNFPA). 
 
We want to see these girls, along with all the vulnerable children in Kolahun, become healthy, productive leaders of change. These children, whose lives have been greatly challenged by adversity, deserve the opportunity to thrive. 

What does hope look like? To get an idea, take a look at the children in Kolahun, a small village in northern Liberia. 

Children like Helen, for example. She is a high school junior, president of the student body at School of Faith and mother of a 20-month-old son. Helen's father died suddenly of a heart attack six years ago. Her mother has suffered from severe depression ever since. 
 
Helen plans on becoming a doctor. This summer, she marched in the U.N. World Hand Washing Day parade in Kolahun.  
 
After the parade, Helen attended a panel discussion on hand-washing at Kolahun Hospital. When a U.N. representative asked if anyone had comments or questions, Helen stood up and spoke eloquently to a crowd of about fifty professionals on the importance of hygienic practices. 
 
Helen is curious and thirsty for knowledge. She has inspired her friends to pursue academic excellence. One evening, a few days after the parade, Helen and another RESTORE HOPE beneficiary, Hassan (who is also determined to become a doctor), came to the RESTORE HOPE: LIBERIA office just as the two doctors at the local hospital, Dr. Raphael and Dr. Christian, arrived. 
 
Along with James, the RESTORE HOPE: LIBERIA Field Coordinator, we all sat outside under the mango tree and talked until the sun went down. Dr. Raphael recounted his experience at Foya Hospital (about 11 miles from Kolahun) in early 2014 when he began to see the first Ebola cases. He arranged for the first blood tests to confirm Ebola in suspected cases.
 
Helen and Hassan listened intently. Dr. Raphael encouraged them, asking thought-provoking, scientific questions. The two young people were ready with possible answers. For example, they knew about ribonucleic acid.
 
Soon the air was filled with the language of antigens and antibodies. And as the sky turned from blue to orange to dusky purple, and swifts fluttered and soared above, you could almost feel the hope riding on the breeze that touched our faces. 
 
Lives were changing because of courage & hope. Thanks be to God.