GARDNERSVILLE, Montserrado —Harriet Mulbah’s eyes brighten as she describes her dream of becoming a nurse. Until recently, that dream seemed impossible for the thirteen-year-old who spent her days guiding her blind mother through Monrovia’s crowded streets, begging for money instead of attending school.
By Nemenlah Cyrus Harmon with New Narratives
But now that dream has a shot at becoming reality. In March 2025 Harriet entered the second grade here in this community on the outskirts of the capital with help from the Liberian government and partners. It’s the first step in an ambitious plan to get the rapidly growing number of children living in Liberia’s streets into school.
“When I used to see my friends in school, I used to feel bad, because I was not in school,” Harriet says in an interview on her campus at the Perfect Grace Mission School.
Harriet is among the children now receiving formal education as part of the “Support A Child, Save The Future” project, launched in August 2024, to address what officials described as a staggering crisis: more than 366,584 Liberian children living in “street situations.” A Front Page Africa/New Narratives report found many of the children were forced into drug use and prostitution and had given birth to babies who also lived on the streets.
Harriet represents a small victory, but it is still clouded with uncertainty. She is enrolled but attends classes without a proper uniform because “the people have not given us a uniform yet.” Nearly eight months into the program there are other signs the project’s outcomes may be smaller than planned.
The project’s approach involves multiple interventions. Some children are temporarily housed in transit facilities while social workers search for families. For those with identified caregivers, the program offers financial support – approximately $US500 per household. Of this amount, $US350 is earmarked to help the family develop a small business and the remainder is for school enrollment costs. Parents must sign agreements promising to keep their children in school and off the streets.
Partner organizations like Street Child, a UK-based organization, provide smaller grants—$US90 for households with one child or $US125 for those with multiple children—along with business training.
“We pay all their fees, we buy them books, we provide them backpacks, we provide them uniforms, we provide them shoes,” says Andrew G. Tehmeh, country director of Street Child. “There’s not a single fee that is left, uniform, ID card, everything.”
Street Child has committed to enrolling 50,000 children over the next five to six years, targeting about 10,000 annually. Tehmeh says they have already supported more than 1200 children in Monrovia and Kakata. (An earlier release from the Ministry of Gender said, “702 former street children enrolled in 19 public schools during the first semester of 2024/2025.”)
“Our motto is that as we put them in school and deal with the first set and give livelihood support in the form of small business grants to their parents, then we move on to another set,” Tehmeh says. “We don’t stay with one set forever.”
At the Perfect Grace School, Joel Johnson, 16, is another beneficiary. He looks weary after a long day of school. He also has no uniform. His well-worn clothes are dirty, and he has no shoes. Still he is happy to be here. Before joining the program he spent his days guiding his blind father through Monrovia’s streets, begging for money.
“When I don’t carry my pa in the street to go hustle, we can’t eat,” he said. Joel wants to be a doctor one day. “I want the government to keep me in school to graduate and do good things for my parents.”
Girls living on the street are often forced into prostitution where they have children they’re unable to care for. Credit: Ricardo Partida/New Narratives
Cuts to International Funding Cast Cloud Over Project
The five-year project has relatively modest aims. It seeks to permanently remove 73,317 children from the streets—only about 20 percent of the identified population—at an estimated cost of $US15 million for just the first two phases. But the government has committed only $500,000 in the current fiscal budget after providing $300,000 when the program launched mid-year in 2024.
This leaves the program heavily dependent on international donors at precisely the moment when many are reducing their commitments to Liberia. The United States, European Union, and Sweden—Liberia’s largest donors—have all cut support.
“Major donor funding cuts and limited government resources are part of the problem,” says Amara Sylvestrees Johnson, coordinator for the National Children’s Project. “GiveDirectly (a UK-based charity) is one of the government’s partners helping to take the children off the street. The organization is experiencing its share of USAID’s suspension.”
GiveDirectly executive director Joseph Yarsiah declined several requests for comments, directing all questions to the government.
Street Child’s future funding is also under a cloud. The organization receives most of its funding from United Kingdom sources, including matching funds from the UK government. But the UK government has also announced plans to cut its aid budget by about 25 percent.
“The British government has announced a 2.5 percent increase in the defense budget coming from the charity budget, so that is going to affect us eventually,” says Tehmeh.
Gender Minister Gbeme Horace Kollie has tried to rally additional support from partners.
“A lot of people want to support, but they want to see how much interest the government has and what it is they can put into this,” Kollie said at a recent event celebrating the halfway mark of the program’s first phase. The government and partners are hoping this show of commitment will incentivize donors.
Roots in Rural Poverty
Harriet and Joel are on the first steps of a long journey. Experts say solving the problem of children living in the streets is complicated. Paying schools fees is only one part of a complex web of social challenges. Multidimensional poverty, especially in rural areas, is a primary driver. World Bank data shows that while three out of ten people in Monrovia live in poverty, the rate soars to eight out of ten in rural regions.
At Hope In God Association of the Blind, a 16-bedroom facility here in Gardnersville, Johnson K. Dorbor, a resident, has struggled to provide for his four children. He is one of 24 visually impaired residents here and 42 children. He is pleased his children are now in the program.
“My children out of school, it brings shame to me,” Dorbor says. “It makes me feel somehow different in the society, when it comes to that matter, by seeing other children going to school and my children sent home for school fees, it means that I am not man enough.”
For families like Dorbor’s, the program represents a rare opportunity in a country where more than half the population lives in poverty and opportunities are few. But Dorbor and many parents in the program are still waiting for the promised business grant that would help sustain his family while keeping his children in school.
“We are hearing about it, and they are telling us that pretty soon they will start with it, so we hope to see that coming,” Dorbor says.
Phase Two to Tackle Rural Factors Driving Children to the Streets
As the program enters its next phase, it plans to tackle the factors that drive rural children’s migration to the streets by strengthening community welfare councils – committees set up to look at children’s rights and violations at the community level.
“The reason why kids are coming to the urban area, they are in search of education and a better livelihood,” Tehmeh says. “If we can create better livelihood education for them where they are, there will be no reason to come to urban areas.”
Building resilience to climate change will also be key. Changing weather patterns have devastated subsistence farming, kept children out of school and accelerate migration to cities.
Tehmeh gives one example: “There’s a school we call Madiana in Montoni, Grand Cape Mount county. We built that school. During the rainy season, kids will not come from the villages to go there because the water will be full, and they won’t be able to go to school.”
Laws Without Enforcement
Law enforcement is another part of the problem. Experts warn without that piece of the puzzle the project might be as waste of time.
“Liberia has some of the best laws and policies that protect children. But the implementation has been the greatest challenge,” says Keifala Kromah, chairperson for the Child Protection Network of Liberia, a coalition of organizations working to protect children. He notes that many children are brought from rural communities to cities without following the proper procedures outlined in foster care guidelines.
Keifala Kromah, chairperson of the Child Protection Network of Liberia, at an event marking the first phase of the project.
“Most of the children said their parents gave them to those people to come to Monrovia to go to school,” Kromah says. “But what happened? They ended up on the street.”
Assistant Labor Minister Emmanuel K. Barnes has pledged to prosecute those who return children to child labor after they’ve been enrolled in school, but enforcement mechanisms remain unclear.
“In the absence of the implementation of the law, the project is not sustainable, says Kormah. “The very children we are taking from the street will see more of them coming back to the street.”
Amara Sylvestrees Johnson, focus person of the street child project at the Ministry of Gender
Despite these challenges, Amara Sylvestrees Johnson, the project coordinator, maintains an optimistic outlook.
“We are very convinced that we’re going to succeed on this project, and I think it is a legacy project for West Africa.”
For children like Harriet and Joel, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
“I don’t want to go back on the street,” says Joel as he begins his homework.
But as international aid priorities shift, and climate change and economic turmoil intensify, Liberia’s ability to protect its most vulnerable children is in doubt. For now, Harriet and Joel are going to school, their dreams in the hands of leaders in Monrovia and global capitals.
This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia Project. Funding was provided by the Swedish Embassy in Liberia. The funder had no say in the story’s content.
