More than Me has had a great year and has many GlobalGiving donors to thank for this.
The holiday season is that perfect yearly reminder of all the gifts we have received in the past year and so on behalf of our students we want to say "thank you" for giving each child a chance at a different life through education.
We put 31 Liberian girls in school this year with the efforts of our tireless all-volunteer staff. Amazing. We have set a goal of 60 girls in school in Liberia with More than Me scholarships by August 2011. We need your help!
I have attached our holiday newsletter and also want to ask if each of you could commit to a recurring donation this year.
$25 a month for next year would pay for a year of school of one of our girls and get her off the streets during the day in one of the poorest slums in the world.
Thank you again for your support this year, we love you, we think of you as our family, and as always reach out to us anytime! We want to hear your story as it creates the larger networked More than Me story.
Happy Holidays!
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Gloria Nagbe is a More than Me volunteer on the ground in Liberia. Read her stirring story below.
In some ways Gloria Nagbe is like most More than Me volunteers. She has a full time job, a family, and needs of her own, but still finds time to work for a cause she believes in. However, Gloria's story and life are incredible and inspiring.
As a child, Gloria escaped Liberia and grew up in a refugee camp in Ghana. After a peace accord was finally achieved, Gloria returned to Liberia and received a scholarship from the Jesuit Refugee Service to attend college. Attending a university in any country can be an arduous experience. Gloria's drive to rebuild her country and life attest to her work ethic and intelligence and led to academic success.
In 2009, Gloria graduated from United Methodist University with a degree management and economics. Shortly after graduating, she married Gerald and she had a daughter, Geralyn. Gerald was murdered a year after their marriage, a crime that remains unsolved.
Gloria sells scratch cards to make a living. Despite her modest income, she adopted a son, Samuel, who is 15. Even though Gloria struggles, she volunteers in West Point, Monrovia's worst slum, because, she says, "the needs of those children and families are more extreme than mine and the little I have can help."
Gloria began volunteering in 2006, by organizing games and activities for children in West Point. After the charity she was working for left Liberia, Gloria continued to organize events for West Point's children on the detritus covered beach near the slum. She joined More than Me last year and has been instrumental in the scholarship program. She checks up on the scholarship recipients and provides counseling for the children and their families.
Many people who lived through the war years in Liberia resist talking about their past and their country's past. They want to look to the future, to better days, and to talk about how they can make improvements.
More than Me is glad Gloria was willing to share some details of her life. Thanks to volunteers like Gloria Nagbe, More than Me is able to stay accountable and to measure the progress of our students. We are proud to have such an amazing person working to help keep children off the streets and put them into school.
You can help keep Gloria's dream alive by donating to More than Me right here on GlobalGiving. Your money will go to support girls in Liberia who wish to go to school, most for the first time.
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Our founder just sent us a video from Liberia which we have linked below! Though the video quality is not fantastic (due to video size compression for her to be able to email it to us from Liberia) it gives a glimpse of life inside the slum where we work in Monrovia.
The last 2 minutes show the kids we put in school, through funding from our donors.
Meet them, connect with them, and feel free to bust a move.
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Below is our most recent letter from the field from our Founder Katie Meyler. Learn more about one of our students, James, and about two of our community volunteers, Macintosh and Gloria.
This is also posted on our brand new blog! Check it out at http://morethanme.org/blog/
He waited for hours outside of the gate where I live ducking under a piece of tin from the pounding rain. Even though James drives me crazy he has figured out a way to tattoo himself onto my heart. I think I will know him for the rest of my life. He is part of my story.
I had to buy an umbrella. There is no way to make it in rain conditions like this without some kind of gear. James and I went to the market, one of my favorite things to do when I travel. After I got my heavy duty camouflaged umbrella we walked around waiting for the rain to cool down. I played with some of the kids, they jumped up on the tables and we made faces at each other and they followed me around as I explored. James was still wearing the shorts I bought him more than 2 years ago; he couldn’t even zipper them they were way too small. We got some shorts.
I took a motorbike inside West Point. One of our ground workers, 30 year old Macintosh invited me to his home. I met his wife, sister in law and the kids that all live in one tiny room. He told me his story which is not much different from many of those who live inside the West Point maze. He’s an orphan. He’s been robbed many times over, watched people killed in front of him and struggles day to day to support his family charging phones from a tiny booth even though he has an education and a dream. Still there’s something different about Macintosh and it’s obvious. People look up to him. I’m still figuring it out. He said he’ll tell me the story later.
He loves kids and has a team that volunteers with the kids in West Point twice a week playing games with them and teaching them life skills. We walked around and he introduced me to the girls and their mothers who will receive a scholarship this year to go to school, some for the first time. I will get to know them more this week, but today was casual.
It’s a lot to soak in. I’ll always call West Point, the beauty and the beast. It’s full of color, LIFE, there are happy screaming, running kids everywhere, people dancing, laughing, cooking, selling, “lecturing” (talking) but it’s also one of the poorest areas in Liberia. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around what that even means. I guess we can just say it means people struggle badly to put their children in school and many don’t make it. It probably means some other things that I will never fully grasp but for now I’m still in awe that 30 new kids will be in school this year. It seems small but to them it’s close to winning the lottery, it’s means more to them then we know. Most of their parents never had that opportunity.
When I left West Point I met with Gloria, also 30, another ground volunteer with More than Me. Her husband was “poisoned” last year and he died. It seems like a normal story, I don’t get it and she didn’t have many answers but she is still full of optimism. She even adopted a child after the death of her husband and uses her free time to volunteer with the kids in West Point. She says they have it worse than her and she can make a difference.
As I look at the pictures from today tears well up in my eyes. I don’t feel sorry for anyone, I feel lucky to know these people. I’ve been here three times now and even lived in the bush for five months but the strength of Liberians still shakes me. They cause me to question what I’m made of and what is really important in my VERY short life.
Motivated to use everything in me to do what I can to send some more kids to school because they asked me to and I really like them.
My insides are moving, (maybe its diarrhea),
Katie
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The below is an excerpt from a letter from our founder Katie Meyler. Last month she returned to Liberia after two years of fundraising in the US to give scholarships to 30 more deserving children through the More than Me Foundation. Read her account below about running into one of our scholarship recipients on the street and the memories the encounter drew.
"I recognized James from far away; he was coming to town to sell cucumbers on his head. He doesn't own a phone so there was no way for me to contact him to tell him I was here. I figured I'd just find him on the street selling or begging from the westerners were we met years ago. He had no idea I was back in Liberia. He has his own way of walking; he walks like he owns the world. Someone must have forgotten to tell him he's a little boy in a raggedy t-shirt with broken flip flops selling vegetables for pennies because from a million miles away with that walk of his, you'd think he was the son of a king, the boy's got pride. From half a football field away, we both stopped, it was so dramatic, then we sprinted. Holding him in my arms after years of not hearing from him, I felt an uncommon emotion. James is not just a kid More than Me sends to school, he's like my little brother. When I'm here we go everywhere together. A couple years back I use to rent a room from missionaries in town. They weren't found of having street kids in their home, rightfully so, but I knew James, I'd give him my most prized positions to watch over. I kinda snuck (the missionaries knew) him and 2 other kids (Emmanuel and Elizabeth) into my room. We'd have pillow fights, jump on the bed, dance like we were in a MTV music video, play cards, James would play with my hair, and I'd make him write sentences until he fell asleep. Then we'd all sleep smushed together on my little bed and in the middle of the night James would put his arm around my neck. He was young then. Now he's too old for all that. But he still held my hand today.
Home is a weird concept for me mostly because for me it's not a physical place. It's a place of peace in my heart. Today with James, his friend Isaac, and later with another one of our kids, Elizabeth and her mom and grandma, I was home. It's been a longtime, I forgot how that felt."
Katie is thrilled to announce that James and 30 more students will be going to school this year with funding from More than Me. However, we need more assistance. We have a waiting list of student's who want to go to school but can't afford the fees and uniform's required.
To learn more about James read our last newsletter below or send us an email, we would love to hear from you!
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