Education has long been a distant hope for most young people in Liberia’s rural areas. While urban students find a way forward, rural students often find there is no school for them after the 6th or 9th grade.

In this collaboration with New Narratives, reporter Siaway T. Miapue travels to Arthington in Montserrado County to meet a young woman who once dreamed of becoming a journalist but now finds herself trapped in a cycle of poverty. Her story is a window into a Liberia’s ongoing rural education crisis that threatens to lock another generation of rural Liberians out of opportunities.

This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Investigating Liberia project. Funding was provided by the Swedish Embassy in Liberia. The funder had no say in the story’s content.