Outraged is definitely not the word I’m looking for to describe my current mental state after reading and watching both article and documentary from New York Time Magazine about this organization.
I hope I’m able organize my thoughts for the sake of my audience.
Four days ago New York Times Magazine released an article about an organization based in Liberia called “More Than Me”. The article basically explained that the founder Katie Meyler a young American from Jersey visited Liberia on September, 7, 2013. She was unimpressed by the education system and decided that she wants to “fix”it. She visited Liberia again and was basically given permission from the president to build a school. Her students would be young sex workers and girls that have been sexually assaulted. (Read the full story https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/longform/more-than-me-investigation )
Katie needed help with the charity so she got a co-founder; Macintosh. To the public he was her partner, they got intimate and were in a relationship at some point. There were reports of Katie having sleepovers with some of the girls and taking them to adult pool parties and allowing them to drink. The story gets even more horrifying when we learn that her “partner” raped almost half of the girls in the school. He got some pregnant and when they spoke out he told them to get an abortion or he would cut off all their resources. The rape victims reported to the school nurse and basically the matter was taken to court. Katie and her team left the country when the girls were to testify against Macintosh. He later died from Aids. Some of the girls he raped were tested for HIV and the test came back positive. They were taken out of the house for “treatment”.
People are rightfully outraged as I am too. But in our anger should we request for the school to be shut down? No. I still believe that they can do some good but that doesn’t mean Katie should not be punished for turning a blind eye to what was happening. This seems to be the trend in every African country. White savior comes, takes pictures with the poor African kids, post it on social media and try to fix poor broken Africa. And what’s annoying is that we allow them. Katie wouldn’t have gotten away with half the things she did if she had her charity in America. Because America is a country with laws and rules. We have to do better as a nation, as people. We have to stop letting our girls down, we leave them vulnerable to situations like this! We leave them broken for some white savior to “fix”. We have to do better. Liberians are the only ones that can build Liberia, Africans are the only ones that can build Africa. We might receive help from outside but the building would have to happen through us. We are the ones that understand our people, we know their stories and we know their pain. It’s all familiar. We have to do better as a continent. We have failed our girls. We have to change this narrative. Today is a sad day in Africa.
-Xoxo Jael
