New photos added on the Flickr Site:

Phase 2 of the Dodi Island project involves the construction of two classroom blocks and two offices, one of which will be the health post.

First visit:

Phase 2 was started with a meeting with the entire community, reintroducing the program to the chiefs, elders and town members and they were all happy. They still remembered the youth team who came to diagnose them and teach them about the illnesses they were facing. These illnesses, mainly bilharzia, guinea worm and malaria have been drastically reduced since the previous program and death rates have dropped.

During the meeting the plans for the building were discussed. The main issues discussed were what kind of school would be built and who will do the work. Read the rest of this entry »

Three women have been jointly awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for their non-violent struggles for women’s rights. Here are profiles of the three: Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee – an activist from Liberia, and Tawakul Karman, a Yemeni rights activist.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected president in 2005

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female head of state, is known as the “Iron Lady” by her supporters.

She is standing for re-election on Tuesday, despite promising she would only seek one term.

While out campaigning, the diminutive 72-year-old is often dwarfed by her party officials and bodyguards but over a political career spanning almost 30 years she has earned her steely nickname.

She was imprisoned in the 1980s for criticising the military regime of Samuel Doe – and then backed Charles Taylor’s rebellion before falling out with him and being charged with treason after he became president.

In 2009, Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended that she be barred from office for 30 years for her role in backing Mr Taylor, who is currently on trial for war crimes in The Hague.

She won the 2005 election run-off even though she faced probably the best known Liberian – former football star George Weah.

Despite the popular appeal of her opponent, analysts say she won because of background as a development economist.

Mrs Sirleaf has held a string of international financial positions, from minister of finance in the late 1970s to Africa director at the United Nations Development Programme.

So many people felt she was well placed to rebuild Liberia’s shattered economy.

Since becoming president, she has cancelled and renegotiated a $1bn contract with the world’s largest steel company, Arcelor Mittal, which has since started iron ore production in the north east.

Another $2.6bn iron ore concession agreement was entered into between the government and China Union, a consortium of Chinese companies.

But she says that her work has not finished, which is why she changed her mind and decided to seek re-election.

“When the plane hasn’t landed yet, don’t change the pilots”, her posters say.

Mrs Sirleaf, a divorcee whose ex-husband died a few years ago, is the mother of four sons and has six grandchildren.

Full profile of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Leymah Gbowee, Liberian peace activist
Leymah Gbowee: Famous in Liberia for mobilising women against war

The Nobel Committee declared that Leymah Gbowee “mobilised and organised women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women’s participation in elections. She has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war”.

She is credited with organising a group of Liberian woman in 2002 to put pressure on then-President Charles Taylor to end the country’s brutal civil war.

They were the mothers, wives and sisters of the men doing the fighting and their victims.

Ms Gbowee is less well known outside Liberia than President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf but is famous inside the country for mobilising the women peace protesters ahead of the war’s end in 2003, says the BBC’s Mark Doyle, a regular visitor to Liberia.

One of the most visible protests was an almost permanent prayer meeting on a football field on the edge of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, our correspondent says.

The women, dressed in white T-shirts, would sign and pray in the hot sun and through heavy rain, he adds.

After the war Ms Gbowee organised hundreds of female Christian and Muslim activists in nine of Liberia’s 15 provinces to help Mrs Sirleaf’s successful campaign for the presidency in 2005.

Then in 2006 she co-founded the Women Peace and Security Network Africa, based in Accra, Ghana.

It works with women in West African countries with a history of conflict.

‎”The future of Liberia lies in the hands of the children”. Wonderful images and a short film sequence by photographer John Keatley.

15 July 2011

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today it had airlifted emergency nutrition supplies and water equipment into Somalia, the country worst affected by a severe drought that has ravaged large swaths of the Horn of Africa, leaving an estimated 11 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.

UNICEF said in an update to the media that the supplies were delivered to Baidoa, a town in the Bay region of south-central Somalia, as part of the agency’s life-saving assistance for drought-affected children. Read the rest of this entry »