Philip Pleiwon

When Philip was 9 years old he hid with his 5 year old brother behind his hut while soldiers butchered his mom and dad. They escaped together and were found in the streets.  Over the years Philip has worked hard at his education and proudly sent copies of his report card to show us how well he had done.  In his last year of high school Philip finished second in Nimba County (Liberia) on the government exams.
   
One of our Directors visited Philip and two days after his departure he was abducted by the Liberian Army to be sent into war with limited training. As war had now broken out in many parts of Liberia, this would have placed Philip at death's door.  We were able to get a letter from a high placed government official to have him released and after locating Philip we worked quickly to get him out of the country.

After gaining entrance, registering and paying for one semester at university Philip showed up for his first day of school only to be told by the registrar that he had never received any money from Philip.  When Philip presented his papers showing payment the school had him thrown in jail for fraud. Thankfully he had been to the United Nations office to receive refugee status and had left copies of his documents with them. The fellow from the UN had Philip removed from jail and also helped him recover some of the stolen funds.

Shortly after this Philip was hit by a car and had to be hospitalized for 2 days. As he could not pay for his stay they would not release him and continued to charge him for each day. After much convincing they allowed him to call our Director and we were able to come to an agreement and have him released.  It was decided that Nigeria was not where he should be and went looking for other options.

After much work we were able to enroll Philip at the University of Johannesburg (only the second Liberian ever to attend). 

Philip is now President of the student economics society.  This entails
getting people like the SA finance minister, central bank governor, CEOs of major companies and other key figures to speak to the members and other students every month and organizing debates amongst students or lecturers on economic issues plus many more.

We are thrilled with the progress Philip has made.