The cultural practice of female genital cutting is rampant in Liberia, especially in the countryside. Parents send girls as young as infants to ceremonies conducted by a secretive indigenous religion known as the Sande to be cut without knowing the health risks involved. But openly talking about this secret rite of passage is taboo here. …
Amnesty International Joins Calls for Police Protection of Mae Azango and Her Sources
DOCUMENT – LIBERIAN POLICE MUST TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION TO PROTECT JOURNALIST AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC STATEMENT 13 March 2012 Liberian Police Must Take Immediate Action to Protect Journalist Mae Azango, an investigative journalist based in Monrovia, is receiving death threats after publishing a story in FrontPage Africa uncovering the practice of female genital mutilation of girls [FGM]…
From Petty Traders to Entrepreneurs in War-Battered Economy
Clothing designer Geneva Garr supervises several men crouched over sewing machines surrounded by beautifully tailored dresses hanging for customers to see. Starting up with just one sewing machine on her porch, Garr, 37, now makes 72 outfits a week. Garr says she started the business in 2005 in Accra, Ghana and moved to Liberia in…
Female Genital Cutting – Why Liberia Must Join the Rest of the World and Outlaw the Practice
An opinion piece by Tetee Karneh. See original post here. Liberia is a little country of 3.5 million people basking in the mindset that because we, unlike most of the rest of Africa, were never colonized by foreign powers, we were not infected by alien cultures. But that mindset is wrong. Liberia’s openness to strangers…
Tradition of Genital Cutting Threatens Health of Liberian Women
Ma Sabah was only 13 years old when she was taken from Gbatallah in Bong County and forced into the Sande bush for a crime her mother committed in her village in 1976. The Sande bush is where women and girls are sent to be circumcised and groomed into women ready for marriage, as culture and tradition demand. See original story…
Committee to Protect Journalists Calls on Government to Protect NN Reporter After Threats For Story on Genital Cutting
The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on the Government of Liberia to protect NN Fellow Mae Azango and her newspaper FrontPage Africa after threats they received for a story on female genital cutting in the country. Mae faced big challenges convincing victims to talk about the practice because it is part of an ancient…
Seek Ye First the Economic Kingdom, Woman
First appeared in Liberia’s FrontPage Africa newspaper March 1 Africa’s first post-independence president, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, urged colonial Africa to “seek ye first the political kingdom, and all else shall be added onto you.” Nkrumah was alluding to the biblical verse, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these…
High Number of Teenage Pregnancies Holds Liberia Back Say Experts
Baby Blessed wriggles and wails in discomfort in his young mother’s lap. Winnie pulls out her breast to feed her sick child and quiet his cries. She looks out at the swampy backyard behind her home as if she would rather be any place other than here. By Mae Azango. Originally published in FrontPage Africa…
“I Am Gay” The First Liberian Homosexuals to Talk to the Media Say Life is Hard
Names in this article have been changed to conceal the identities of gay persons mentioned. Jerome, 16, strides like he is a supermodel on a runway. He has a slender body, and his hair is cut short. The fashionable teen is wearing denim jeans. A white polo T-shirt bathed in dragon designs reveals his bare…
NN Reports First Interviews With Gay Men in Liberia
NN fellow Wade Williams and photographer Chase Walker have published the first interviews with openly gay men in Liberia. The story was published as gay rights activists have been attacked and faced death threats in the country. The reporting took considerable bravery on the part of our reporters, the interview subjects and FrontPage Africa editor…
NN and FrontPage Africa Feature Liberia’s First Interview with Homosexuals
At New Narratives we believe discussing issues in a public forum is the first step to finding solutions that will protect the rights of all people. For that reason we are proud that are reporter, FrontPage Africa editor Wade Williams has done the first interviews with gay Liberians to run in the country’s press. Prior to…
NN Executive Director to Present at African conference on Media Development
New Narratives Executive Director Prue Clarke will present on a panel discussing business models in African media at the Commonwealth Sierra Leone Media and Development conference in Freetown January 25-27th, 2012. Prue will discuss New Narratives’ innovative approach to media business model building and the work of Columbia University students on the topic, supervised by…
Liberian President Faces Tough Second Term
By NN fellow and FrontPage Africa editor Wade Williams MONROVIA, Liberia — Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will be sworn in for her second term this Monday but the 73-year-old Nobel laureate begins her six-year term under a heavy cloud. An acrimonious election campaign against the main opposition party, Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), was…
US government gives $50K to Liberian rape clinic featured in NN reporting
The THINK rape clinic in Monrovia, featured in New Narratives reporting on child rape, has been granted $50,000 by the US embassy in Liberia to keep up their outstanding work. A 3-year-old rape victim walked into the clinic when NN was reporting there in 2010. Said clinic supervisor Elizabeth Kekula: “We tell leaders that tiny children…
Clarence Jackson NN Fellow, Editor-in-Chief, Radio Gbarnga
Clarence Jackson is Editor-In-Chief at Radio Gbarnga and Regional Coordinator of the Press Union of Liberia for Bong, Nimba and Lofa Counties. He has been a journalist for more than fifteen years. Clarence is a prolific journalist whose reporting focuses Politics and Governance. He has also worked as correspondent from Central Liberia for several institutions…
Robtel Neajai Pailey Alum
Robtel Neajai Pailey joins New Narratives as our first Opinion Writing Fellow. Robtel’s opinion pieces appear in FrontPage Africa and her commentaries air on radio stations across Liberia. Robtel was recently named one of the Top 99 Foreign Policy Leaders Under 33. Born in Monrovia, Liberia, Robtel is an activist/writer who spent her formative years…
Chase Walker Photojournalist, Court Artist
Chase Walker is New Narratives’ resident photojournalist. He works at FrontPage Africa newspaper and website where he is head of the graphic department and is responsible for the layout and design of the newspaper. He also regularly contributes political and social cartoons. Chase’s photographs for New Narratives have appeared in publications around the world. Chase…
New Narratives fellow Mae Azango becomes the second Liberian woman to win a US reporting grant.
FrontPage Africa reporter Mae Azango has been selected as one of four African journalists to win a prestigious grant from the U.S.-based Pulitzer Center to cover reproductive health issues. Mae will join 3 other African journalists awarded the grants at the International Conference on Family Planning in Senegal from November 28 – December 3. The…