LIBERIA: Bong Supt. Chides Women At Confab

Rural women from three of Liberia's fifteen political subdivisions have ended a two day rural women conference in Gbarnga, Bong County. The conference was organized for experience-sharing, success stories and the way forward.

Speaking at the regional conference, Bong county Superintendent Selena Polson-Mappy urged the women to unite and speak with one voice, admonishing them to do away with individual benefits or glory and focus on how they can create an environment in which there would be access to the basic necessities of life, respect and pride for every woman.

Superintendent Mappy expressed the belief that it was time for women to put aside their differences and unite in order to achieve their goals. She attributed the massive defeat of women in last October's Legislative elections to the disunity among women, urging women to learn the lesson from the past in the interest of their future.

Speaking at the end of the two-day rural women conference, the head of the Development Education Network Liberia or DEN-L, Dorothy Tooman acknowledged that the conference's intended goals and objectives were met because the women adequately shared their experiences and discussed their contributions to the nation's development process.

She assured the women of her institution's preparedness to always organize such gathering for the women to enable them identify their weaknesses and challenges for the necessary steps towards empowerment. Madam Tooman admonished women to see themselves as the foundation of the nation, adding that this can only be done if they are capacitated during this post war era.

The participants praised the organizers and sponsors of the conference and called on government to better improve road network across the country to enable them transport their goods to markets.

Participants from Lofa County, engaged in agricultural activities, complained of deplorable road conditions from Lofa County to Gbarnga, noting that the harvested over one hundred bags of peanuts, but the goods perished of their inability to market them. They expressed the fear that food security may be difficult to achieve should the government fail to adequately address the issue of road across the country.