The story highlights how gambling is pulling young men away from Liberia’s rural farms, leaving fields untended and harvests diminished. Many farmers complain that instead of working, laborers spend their days at betting shops, chasing quick wins. This shift drains vital manpower from agriculture, undermines food production, and deepens poverty in communities that depend on…
Joseph Titus Yekeryan
Liberia’s Empty Harvest: How Gambling Is Draining the Labor from Rural Farms
By Joseph Titus Yekeryan with New Narratives NEGBAN, Bong County – The vegetable and lowland rice field behind the Yan family home here should be alive with movement this time of year: young men clearing brush; laughter rising above the steady rhythm of hoes striking soil, and seedlings lined in careful rows. Instead, the field…
Christmas Momentum Fades in Liberia’s Bong County
Momentum for the 2024 Christmas and New Year holidays has faded. As with every part of Liberia, residents of Bong County, one of the country’s populous regions, have complained of economic hardship. They told Joseph Titus Yekeryan, our Bong County correspondent, that the issue prevents them from providing for their families during these holiday periods….
Children Forced Out of School and into Labor as Poverty Tightens Grip on Rural Liberia
By Joseph Titus Yekeryan with New Narratives SALALA, Bong County- The midday sun beats down here as 10-year-old Nulee runs from one vehicle to another with plastic sachets of cold-water urging passengers to buy. “Cold water, cold water here! Make your chest cold!” he calls out in a high-pitched voice. His childhood, once filled with…