If the emerging roles of Liberian women in Minnesota are anything to go by, then our community leadership landscape is on the verge of changing forever. A friend of mine said, “Emerging roles at least in the last three years”. In 2003 we saw the emergence of the Liberian Women Initiative of Minnesota (LIWIM). At the beginning of the year, two progressive Liberian women organized and unleashed the potentials of Liberians kids at the OLM Inaugural ceremonies. The group is called Dare to Dream. Quite recently, the Bushchicken website heralded the coming of Productive Women, a non-profit organization headed by some pioneering Liberian women.
One could look at the niche being created by these fledgling women organizations as an enviable trend but it also useful to bring into sharp focus the impact of individual Liberian women. Looking at President Martha Sinoe of OLM, for example, one sees another trend, a phenomenon of its own. Martha Sinoe, then a virtual unknown, entered the OLM presidential race in 2003, highlighting what women are capable of impacting when they marshal a force of grassroot support and bring into the mainstream those who are outraged by leadership failures.
Although she did not win the OLM presidency, Martha Sinoe’s candidacy mounted the most formidable challenge to the male-dominated leadership culture in our community. As if the OLM race was a dress rehearsal, she subsequently contested the ULAA Northern Regional Vice-Presidency and won. She would later run for OLM’s top post and win, emerging as the first elected female President of OLM.
As the first elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of OLM, Marie Hayes walks in the same great tradition. The message is clear---Liberian women in Minnesota are a force to reckon with, and you will have to believe it or experience it!
In the second trend, where we try to understand how individual women are attempting to redefine the leadership landscape and influence the course of events, we come across the likes of Julia Grear, Harriet Badio, Georgett Gray, Doris Parker, Annie Yonly, Minty Wongeh, Kate Adams, Marie Johnson, Margaret Toweh, Beatrice Wisseh, Caroline Galimah, Edwina Taye, Vicki Pour, Salimatu Butler, Etta Gbezon, Elizabeth Gaye, Ruby Addy, Re Cooper, Thalia Cooper, Mackeline Wilson, and other fine women species.
Before then, we would treat ourselves to fabulous events organized by the Golden Girls, a group of older Liberian women caught between the exhaustion that attends old age and the nostalgia of reliving the good old Liberian days. They have certainly secured for themselves an enviable place in our community.
Even so, we must ask the hard and tough questions--What explains the emergence of these organizations? Do they complement one another or merely exist to duplicate one another? What conditions make for their existence?
Let us look at LIWIM as a useful starter. In 2003 ULAA (Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas) organized a women conference in Minnesota. The goals of the conference were supposedly based on two major counts—inspire the participation of Liberian women in decision-making processes and empower them to lead, whatever that meant.
Before long, some of the organizers began to flip the script by insisting that Liberian women in Minnesota function under the banner of ULAA. Well, Liberian women in Minnesota proved that they were not prepared to serve as cheerleaders, no matter the desperate intents of some of the organizers to enhance their standing in the Liberian Diaspora. Thus, the “empowered women” formed themselves into a group called LIWIM and then quickly shielded themselves from the “hidden agenda” of some of the organizers. This message here is even clearer—Liberian women in Minnesota are anything but camp followers.
Today, LIWIM is involved in the delivery of an effective adult literacy courses to a good number of our unlettered mothers and sisters in Minnesota, as well as the shipment of much-much needed relief items to Liberia
Truth be told, my goal is to generate a healthy and engaging discourse on the organizational landscape of Liberian women in Minnesota, and I hope I did. In Part II, which is coming soon, I will attempt to put into context the factors that made for the existence of the other women organizations as well as the roles of particular women in the rapidly changing leadership landscape. Be my guest!
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