Harmony Center
Harmony Community Disabled Center
In November 2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), provided for Peer Counseling Training of volunteers from within the community at the refugee camp. Elisabeth was one of those trained. She went on, with a group of others, to form Harmony Community Disabled Center (Harmony) in 2003. When Point Hope and Delilah came to the camp in 2004, Harmony was sharing space at the Women’s Center on the camp. In 2006, Harmony was able to move into its own building, sharing office space with a newly begun skills training program. They began training disabled adults and their caregivers in the skill of soap making and soon added other skills training. In 2008, Point Hope donated an oven to Harmony so they could add baking to their skills training program. Today, Elisabeth, David and Thomas (all Liberians) are the primary volunteers for Harmony. They oversee the continued training of adults in the skills of baking, batik, beading, sewing, and soap making; presently there are 65 adults (including the caregivers of the disabled adults and children) enrolled in Harmony skills training.
But Harmony does more than just skills training. Their volunteers have received additional training over the years, with a special focus on disabled children. When Point Hope arrived in 2004, Katherine, a British woman trained as a Special Counselor for Children was there helping to establish schooling for disabled children who were not accepted in traditional schools in the camp. In 2005, Elise, a French physical therapist (and wife of the doctor then assigned to St. Gregory’s Clinic), came and trained caregivers to perform physical therapy with children afflicted with cerebral palsy, showing how to stretch their muscles to encourage use. She was followed by another French volunteer, Clair, who continued to help Harmony clients and volunteers until her departure in November 2008.
From that point, Harmony’s work continued through the sole efforts of the community volunteers. Prior to then, it had become clear Harmony needed financial assistance to continue, so Point Hope began partnering with them beginning in 2008. In 2009, when the lease expired for Harmony’s “schoolhouse” (one small room in a very dark building) and they were told it would not be renewed, Point Hope invited Harmony to move into a classroom at our skills training and day care facility in the camp, at no charge.
Today, Harmony continues to offer some of the skills training in their own building, but is also able to use the Point Hope classroom to teach their sewing skills adult class each weekday morning using tables and benches built and provided for them by Point Hope carpenters. Each afternoon they are able to provide a meal, educational classroom instruction, art training and music lessons for the children, all funded by Point Hope. There are 20 children presently enrolled in Harmony’s school, 12 of them are disabled. Harmony is the only school on the camp that provides a special class for children with cerebral palsy.