The Jewel Starfish Foundation (JSF) has reached out to people in the densely populated township of West Point in Central Monrovia. Given the presence of more than one thousand girls under its care across Liberia, the organisation believes that sitting idly during this crucial period is a gamble that it would not risk.

The Founder of the organisation, Vice President Jewel Howard Taylor, stated that ‘we have some of our scholarship recipients under the Jewel Starfish Foundation that live here in West Point and we know how difficult things will be. The President has asked that we shut down the country, at least Montserrado County will be shut down. I don’t want these girls to be left without food because they would come outside to find food and some of them would be lost’.

She added that the distribution of food and Anti-[Covid-19] materials was the foundation’s way of staying committed to ensuring that the girls are safe and able to return to Ricks Mission Institute where they are schooling.

The long-time champion of girls’ education noted that the girls are still nursing the trauma of surviving the More Than Me sex scandal and were taken by the Jewel Starfish Foundation to be catered for through high school and college.

The organisation has reached out to over 50 beneficiaries from other parts of Montserrado County and provided bags of rice, Covid-19 buckets, soaps, sanitary pads, gloves, nose masks and tokens to help underprivileged girls and their mothers cope in these tough times of the Covid-19 pandemic.

It was noted that the JSF’s initiative came at a time when the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres said that ‘we know lockdowns and quarantines are essential to suppressing [Covid-19], but they can trap women with abusive partners. Over the past weeks, as the economic and social pressures and fear have grown, we have seen a horrifying surge in domestic violence’.

Source: Liberian Observer

Photo source: USAID US Agency for International Development