Project Title: Integrating Women’s Empowerment, Economic Development and Mental Health in Rural Liberia

Location: Liberia

Grant Amount: $50,000 (over two years)

Grantee Website: www.restorehopeliberia.org

Areas of Impact: Economic Sustainability, Gender Equality, Health

Mission of RESTORE HOPE: LIBERIA
RESTORE HOPE: LIBERIA provides essential support to vulnerable children and their caregivers, with timely and sustainable resources and activities that will protect their health and wellbeing, ensure access to education, and provide economic opportunities beyond school, thus providing a way out of extreme and enduring poverty.

Summary
In Liberia, a debilitating mental health crisis persists in a context of extreme poverty. Fourteen years of brutal civil war, the largest Ebola epidemic in human history, and pervasive gender-based violence have resulted in widespread trauma especially in women and girls. This project will finance the training of local mental health facilitators in order to integrate Interpersonal Group Therapy, an evidence-based approach, into existing women’s economic and social empowerment initiatives. These initiatives include weaving co-operatives, art therapy, photo therapy, and storytelling.

Why We Love This
By providing a unique model of Interpersonal Group Therapy, RESTORE HOPE: LIBERIA is truly bringing hope and renewal to communities experiencing trauma. The model is simple, effective, and appropriate in resource-poor settings. The integration of activities that are culturally familiar, with therapeutic interventions which are culturally new, offer the women opportunities for working towards a better tomorrow.