August 10, 2011

News from Dea

Information about Dea Lieu's work, his home country and his people.

July 14, 2011




Leadership Development
Board members and their guests

The Christian Association to fight poverty which was formed in the course of the year 2007 has experienced some growth. At that time there was a few dozens of farmers and small skill business men and women that were affiliated and had received after training a total of $ 5000.00 in small loans.
Very rapidly the news spread and membership in just a few years grew from the dozens of farmers and small skill entrepreneurs to about five hundred members. With the generous donation of our Norh American partners the loan fund also grew from $ 5000.00 to $30,000.00.
The board of directors aware of the need of a greater managerial skill requested a week long training.
Our West African facilitator in charge of training is an American citizen and not very fluent in French so she  found a Canadian French speaking couple Gert and Martha Kollenhoven to be translators of the course. Dereck, intern at LEAD LIBERIA also joined the group and led the morning devotion.
From left to right Dereck intern  
LEAD, Gerard, Renita, Armande
and Martha
Board members during work shop
session
For five consecutive days all the nine board members faithfully attended the classes.It was a great time of learning and sharing and nobody wanted to miss any session. Topics such as the Four Pillars of Partner Worldwide, Good Governance, Role of Board members, strategic planning, Pricing & Cost Analysis and many other important topics were discussed.
Meanwhile life in the country has not been not safe. The struggle for power continues to shake the entire nation. Gun men were all over and traveling became dangerous. We heard many stories of heavily armed rogues cutting roads. They not only stole money from travelers but also indulged in raping women. At times fighting broke out between rebels and governments forces. Thanks to God and the international peace keeping forces things quited down.
Every day we sensed the stage was getting set for violent confrontation; consequently business became slower and our clients had difficult time to increase their businesses or even pay back their loans.

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