Youth Empowerment And Development Initiative
LEDI believes that the youth is the future of Liberia. We hope to combine sound youth development approaches and sports to cultivate reconciliation, discipline, teamwork, conflict resolution and community involvement in the youth of Liberia.
Why Youth Development Initiative
The Liberian youth, the future of the country, are the greatest casualty of the brutal civil war. Many faced the traumas of spending their entire childhood engrossed in a brutal civil war, being separated from parents and loved ones, and in some cases, being forced to bare arms and participate in the atrocities as child soldiers. Since the end of the war, many youth have struggled to reconnect with normal society and will require many years of rehabilitation. Playing sports, primarily soccer, has become the favorite pass time of many Liberian youth and has provided youth with an escape from the toils and hardships of life.
LEDI will combine sports, rehabilitation, personal development, and social integration needs of the youth to deliver a sound youth development program that will transform our youth into future leaders. LEDI will seek to use sports as a tool to offer mentorship and teach valuable life skills and principles that will facilitate personal development and help youth escape a life of crime and poverty.
Our Solution
LEDI seeks to establish an ongoing youth sports and empowerment program to aid in the development of Liberian youth in the following ways:
- Sponsor inter and intra school sporting events (soccer, kickball, basketball, etc).
- Establish and support debates, quizzing contests, science and math programs.
- Use sports as an outlet for social and emotional rehabilitations.
- Use sports to provide mentorship and personal development to traumatized youth.
- Form strategic partnerships with international sports institutions and personalities to offer services and donate needed equipment and apparatus to the LEDI sports initiatives.
- Help deserving youth earn international sports scholarships and other educational opportunities.
- Provide internship opportunities to the youth.
- Provide job readiness skills to the youth.
- Promote community organizing among the youth.
- Provide local scholarships and other academic support.
We are therefore inviting you to support LEDI in its efforts to economically empower poor Liberians to overcome poverty through our youth development and empowerment initiatives.