Children's Rehab and Orphanage Home
Monrovia, Liberia
The Children's Rehab and Orphanage Home was founded by Deacon Isaac J. Gboneh, Sr. to help address a critical need created by the civil war that consumed Liberia from 1990 through 2003. Many children became orphans when their parents were killed or abandoned as the parents sought to secure their own lives. As the war continued more and more children were forced to become child soldiers and engaged in the actual killing of others. Eventually the streets of Monrovia and other places were filled with the emotional wreckage of young people trying to overcome the horrors of what they had done as drug-induced killers.
Deacon Isaac Gboneh and his wife, observing the plight of suffering Liberian children, organized the Children's Rehab and Orphanage Home in 1995. One of their stated purposes was to provide "the basic needs for the support, maintenance and comfort of the post-war and war afflicted Liberian children and to rehabilitate, reintegrate and reconstruct the lives of orphans, abandoned, disadvantaged, disabled and destitute as a result of the war."
Deacon Gboneh recently passed away and his work is continued by his wife and their son, Opa Prince Gboneh. Presently the orphanage cares for 78 residents and has a waiting list for more children. This care includes very basic living accommodations, food, schooling and spiritual guidance.
The orphanage has been housed in a woefully small and inadequate facility which they have leased. There are three buildings almost ready for them to occupy on a new compound. The facilities include dormitories and a school building.
They have existed on a budget of less than $1,500.00 per month, plus whatever free food they could get from non-governmental organizations working in Liberia.