Maria Horkan writes,

I’ve recently returned from a month long visit to the West African country of Liberia as part of CAFOD’s ‘Step into the Gap’ programme, which I’m doing whilst working on the Youth Ministry Team in the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. We were there to meet and work with CAFOD’s partners, Don Bosco Homes and Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (CJPS). During our visit, we saw how these two organisations both work to improve the lives of the young people of Liberia – with Don Bosco we spent time at a rehabilitation centre for boys who had run away from home or got into trouble with the law, and with CJPS we visited small businesses that had set up apprenticeship schemes to provide young people with better career prospects. It was, as I knew it would be, an amazing experience in many ways, and also in ways I did not expect…

I was travelling with my fellow gap-year students Becca Evenhuis (18) and Tom Kitchen (19), and the CAFOD Diocesan Manager for Hexham and Newcastle, Ged Naughton. On one of our first days after arriving in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, we were introduced to some members of the Millennium Stars, a Liberian football team who visited the UK in 1999 on a three week tour. They had visited Middlesbrough as part of the tour, and I went to a celebration evening held by Knights of St Columba for them, so some of the names and faces seemed quite familiar, despite the 11 year gap.

The team was very welcoming and wanted to show us around. The goalie, Nusee, took us for a walking tour of the 12th street community where he lives. It was definitely off the beaten track – Nusee told us it was impossible to get a car by his house and we witnessed this as we stepped over breeze blocks and walked down sandy tracks on the way to his house. Washing lines were strung across our path, children played everywhere in the streets (including some who were playing a very complex looking game involving a ball and a flip flop) and we were greeted by lots of stares and even more waves of hello from children.

At Nusee’s house, he introduced us to his mother and got out his photo album from the ’99 tour. Tom opened the first page, gave it a quick glance and went to turn it over, before Becca spotted someone who looked vaguely familiar. The picture was of a confident Liberian footballer talking to three young fans. One of them was a much younger (but still very recognizable) me. No one could have summed it up better than Nusee’s mother – “You still have the same small face!” Although this is my first trip to Liberia, it appears that my face has been known here for 12 years. It was simultaneously slightly bizarre and great to feel like I was connected to the family and the team in this way.

You may have heard Liberia in the news recently concerning the number of Ivoirians that have fled there to escape the growing troubles in the Cote d’Ivoire surrounding the general elections. When we were in Liberia back in January, the situation was unfolding and the last day of our stay with CJPS in the northern town of Ganta was taken up with a trip to the Upper Nimba region, a short walk from the Ivoirian border, to meet refugees and observe the beginning of the work that CJPS were hoping to do with them.

Upon arrival, the picture that I had previously held of a refugee camp was immediately dispelled. The 40 or so Ivoirians were gathered under a tree with a handwritten sign pinned to it in French saying ‘Refugee Registration Centre’. Whilst sitting amongst them, I noticed at least two heavily pregnant young women and a good number of babies being carried on their mothers’ backs. Through CJPS translation, we heard their story of how they were struggling to register without ID cards and consequently could not receive their food ration packs; some had been there since before Christmas, waiting to receive support from a community which did not seem able to provide this. After being asked what made them flee, one man replied “My sister was giving birth and being helped by midwives when gunshots began to ring through the air. The midwives scattered and the baby did not survive”.

This is not the first time these Ivoirians have experienced such trouble, so this time they knew immediately that seeking refuge in another country was necessary, as the refugees’ ‘chief’ told us: “When you have been hit by a bull once, you’ll always run, even if it’s just a termite hill you see.” You’ve got to appreciate the looming bulk of a termite mound in the dusk in the West African bush to get that one, but another aphorism summed up their plight: “When two elephants fight, it’s the grass that gets trampled.”

CJPS were expecting to work as mediators of conflicts between the refugees themselves, between the refugees and their Liberian host families, and between the frazzled Liberian authorities and the wave of incomers. Liberia itself was wracked by civil war from 1990 to 2003, but had peaceful elections in 2007 and is preparing for further elections in October of this year. We wait to see what happens, with hope…

The ‘Step into the Gap’ scheme aims to offer a rounded gap year experience, and takes place both overseas and in the UK. It will bridge the ‘gap’ between the elements of adventure and service that occur in many other year-out experiences.