News & Media

Sarah Brooker

Sarah Brooker is one of our newest scholarship recipients and she has quite an incredible story. Sarah comes from quite an impoverished situation, being raised by a single mother who cannot afford the basic necessities of life, much less monies for her daughter to attend school. So, she only attended a few  years before having to drop out because it was not financially feasible. A teacher at the Solo Community School first spotted Sarah while she was helping her mother sell produce from their garden at the Dolo Town Market. It is probably not a surprise that selling greens and peppers was not profitable enough to fund Sarah returning to school, much less having a decent standard of living in the economically tumultuous country of Liberia. 

Furthermore, Sarah’s mother was not educated but did offer her the best she could, which was to teach her daughter how to grow produce and sell it to make ends meet.

With such odds against her it was touching and inspiring that Sarah never gave up, reading and writing on even the paper that was used to service customers. She even recited multiplication tables so that she could remember them. This was how Sarah and her mother had lived for two years until… Sarah’s former teacher sought her out in the market that day to offer her an opportunity for a scholarship so she could return to school.  With past records that were promising she also passed all the tests required and earned her scholarship to return to school. Since Sarah’s return, look at how she has embraced her opportunity to learn. Today, ROAD is proud to partially support Sarah. She has even been promoted to the next grade after just one semester because of her good academic performance. Sarah is an inspiration and testament to the importance of the work that ROAD does.

You are the inspiration and difference maker that will allow us to keep doing this important work. May God bless the works of our hands and save Liberia!

MA- Hawa

Proud Scholarship Recipient, 2022

“I am so glad to be able to go to school now and not have to work on the street. Thank you, ROAD.”

MA- Hawa, 2022

When we first met MA- Hawa, she was a nine-year-old girl who didn’t have access to an education because she had to work to support her family. She had been doing that since she was only three years of age because her father had lost his job at a librarian company, forcing the family to move. Street selling is a tough life for anyone but for a three-year-old it is heartbreaking. MA- sold bread and biscuits in the middle of the road and the marketplace for all those years until she met somebody on the ROAD staff who had been paying attention to her story. They knew she worked from early morning until evening five days a week. The team learned her story too. Once her story was validated, it was with great excitement that we offered her the opportunity to go back to school. Her family was also thrilled with the opportunity presented to MA-. It is wonderful to see her in the classroom now, learning so much and starting to recognize wonderful dreams and goals.

Kari and Kamari Manley wrote us

To: Rose’s Organization for Advocacy and Development
From: Kari and Kamari Manley

This was our first year in school. We learned a lot at Bryant Children’s College. Next year we are exciting to be entering K2. Thank you for your support of us. We hope it continues by His race. 

Disability & Liberia

The disabled community in Margibi County is one that ROAD loves to see get better year by year. Our people in this community are no longer forgotten but their needs are still not being met due to the horrific economic conditions of Liberia. To make ends meet, these people are forced to ask for help by begging on the streets in their communities.
ROAD decided to help with some contributions and it was met with great joy from these incredible individuals and offered a sense of peace to the community at large.

This is what these people shared with is through their leader, Mr. Augustine Gbennie:

We write to show our gratitude and appreciation for your countless efforts towards helping us achieve one of our main goals, which is to have land in our own name (The Disabled Community: Margibi Chapter). However, we are appealing through your good office to help us with the construction of our office, as we have acquired the land space and now need assistance with some disable materials to better the lives of disable in Margibi County.

We are kindly appealing to your  office to help in one other area: providing scholarships for children with disabilities, because they are increasing in number and they are very challenged by their many academic differences, like been put out of school because of fees, uniform, books, shoes, etc. These children are brilliant based on their academic performance and can serve humanity in many capacities. We are appealing for this scholarship because we don’t want to use their conditions as an excuse or an obstacle that will prevent them from reaching their full potential.
Therefore, we see this scholarship as a means to unleash their full abilities and to also prepare them mentally for the challenges they might face in the future.
It is an honor to have such a fantastic organization as yours to turn to for help, and we are very grateful to God and you for that.

After ROAD received this message we were touched, feeling in our hearts the difference we can make to other human beings  lives and wellbeing. Let’s work together to help the disabled communities of Liberia by getting these valuable contributors to society off the streets and focused on keeping their children in school so that Liberia will be better for all—not just some.