Acquiring Skills to Overcome Challenges for Positive Values

         Graduates of the Center for Justice and Peace Studies (CJPS) Mentorship  Program in Margibi County

The Center for Justice and Peace Studies (CJPS) in partnership with Bread for the World – Civil Peace Service,  in late October 2023 graduated 84 adolescent girls and young women. They were trained in the CJPS mentor-ship training program in Gbarnga and Kakata, rural Liberia.

The mentorship program allows young women to acquire life skills to enable them to overcome future challenges and adhere to positive values and norms in their environment.

Participants were trained in leadership, decision-making, reproductive health, and life skills, which are part of the CJPS mentor-ship module.

Center for Justice and Peace Studies Program Manager, Francis S. Konyon in remarks at the closing program for 42 mentees in Kakata City, Margibi County said, CJPS is working with adolescent girls and young women to empower them to become good examples in their respective communities and to also serve as role models for their peers, noting that they live in some of the communities where people celebrate wrong things.

The CJPS is engaging several communities at different levels with the graduation of 150 men in Kakata and Gbarnga, under its Father School Program. The program is intended to train young men on how to become positive and supportive partners to their wives, and also become active parents to their children.

The CJPS has plans according to its Program Manager to extend the training to more young girls and women in Margibi County. Some of the mentees during the graduation program noted that with the knowledge acquired, they are better prepared to provide leadership, resolve disputes, and help avert crises in their respective communities.

CJPS is a youth-focused development organization, working extensively in supporting peaceful co-existence among community members and promoting youth participation in decision-making processes.

Civil Peace Service, Bread for the World is a German-funded program aiming at preventing violence and promoting peace in crisis zones and conflict regions. CPS supports partners and people on the ground in their commitment to dialogue, human rights, and peace on a long-term basis. The goals of the Civil Peace Service Liberia country program are: Marginalized groups are integrated to reduce the fragmentation of society and natural resources are utilized for the general public, and at a local level.