In Liberia, women and girls can have a hard path to walk. The country has a high rate of gender inequality, which means that women and girls are vulnerable to gender-based violence, child marriage, and teenage pregnancy, all of which extend the cycle of poverty generation after generation. 

This year’s NCM Christmas Project supports those who are trying to change those facts. 

Through the Empowering Women With Dignity project, women and girls attend vocational classes hosted at Nazarene churches. The students are given opportunities to improve their economic conditions as they learn how to create goods to sell and run a small business, but equally as important is the chance for their God-given dignity to be affirmed and celebrated. 

Sao graduated from the catering course through the Empowering Women With Dignity project in March 2020 – just before the pandemic hit. Around the same time, her husband lost his job. So she set to work using the skills she had learned to make sure they and their three children had enough to eat. 

“Life was difficult, especially in the beginning of March … my children and myself could hardly eat,” she says. “Looking in this situation, I then made use of the skills I learned at the vocational center.”

Every morning, she left home to sell meat dishes, shortbread, and cookies. And every day, she was able to sell everything before the 3 pm curfew started. Her children were her biggest encouragers when she went back to school, and she says they gave her courage to do it. The whole family benefited from Sao’s expertise. 

In Liberia, 36 percent of girls are married before they reach 18. Some of the women who attend the classes have spent years selling coal or other small goods, but the income from these is hardly enough to support a family. Even before the pandemic, a steady and reliable income can be the difference between poverty and survival. That income also means that their daughters can stay in school longer, changing the story and the future.  

“If you learn something, you should also give the knowledge to your friend so that she, too, will give to another person,” Sao shares. “So, Nazarene women empower us to empower women friends.”

Learn more about the Christmas Project here.

Learn more about the Empowering Women With Dignity courses here.