Este artigo é uma tradução de Ceasefire Liberia: New Milestones escrito originalmente por Rezwan.
[Todos os links do texto são em inglês]

Ceasefire Liberia, projeto do Rising Voices que celebrou seu primeiro aniversário em abril, teve novas conquistas recentemente. Ruthie Ackerman escreve:

Ruthie Ackerman & Nat Bayjay

We have formed partnerships with other fantastic organizations, we’ve been profiled a number of times in the media, we have raised friends, recruited bloggers and even were in Santiago, Chile earlier this month for the Global Voices Citizen Media summit. One of the most exciting moments was when I met Nat Nyuan-Bayjay, Ceasefire Liberia’s blog manager, for the first time in the year we have been working together online. Isn’t it amazing when online and offline worlds converge? I met so many online friends in Chile, many whom I only knew from the Twitter handles. Another bonus from the trip: Global Voices donated a video camera to the Ceasefire project so our bloggers can start to work on video. So look for those soon!

Kim Chou, do Think Social [Pense Social] publicou uma entrevista com a Ruthie. Um trecho:

My hypothesis (of why bloggers in Liberia are blogging more) is because of a sense of urgency,” Ackerman said. “Those in Staten Island, because they have so much access, and so much to read and do on the internet, think it’s not so important for them to share their stories … In Staten Island they think nobody cares about their stories, but in Liberia [they] think people will want to hear their stories.

Agora vamos dar uma olhada em algumas dessas histórias publicadas pelos blogueiros do Ceasefire Liberia. Saki G. publicou algumas fotos da Libéria.

This young girl has a newspaper business on the University of Liberia’s campus during normal school hours. While others are just bread eaters, she is a potential bread winner.

Denna Gibson escreve:

There is a tendency in Liberia that has to do with men being fully in charge when it comes to sports and that should not be. There are competent young women who played women soccer and are high school and college graduate fit to be part of the technical staff of the women national team. Let chance be given to those interested.

Dennis Jah, conhecido como Gbakukenju, publicou sua resposta ao discurso da independência feito pelo Presidente Sirleaf.

The Liberian war has ended and hopefully it has ended for good. We are all scared to death when there is even a faint mention of another war as we have not even buried all the casualties of the long one that just ended or completely healed from all its wounds and cuts. But it is how we deal with the aftermath of this very ugly war that will go a long way in mending our broken pieces and writing off any form of violence as means of changing governments or fostering our economic and political agendas. If perpetrators of this tragic part of Liberian history will continue to justify their participation as prudent ways in standing up to “dictatorship” or quip that they did nothing wrong because their actions were endorsed by a vast majority at a time, they are re-killing those who died, re-inflicting the sores of the wounded, re-leveling our cities and towns, closing the doors on genuine healing and reconciliation and setting the stage for more bloodshed and revenge.

Monumento da Unificação em Voinjama, Lofa

Nat Bayjay escreveu sobre a tão desejada política de unificação que agora luta para unir completamente as pessoas, particularmente com relação aos diferentes grupos étnicos. A Fundação W. K. Kellog premiou o projeto Ceasefire Liberia com um benefício de US$10.000 dólares para começar um novo braço chamado Ceasefire. O projeto irá focar em criar um projeto de mídia cidadã para imigrantes africanos e jovens afro-americanos em Staten Island baseados no modelo do Ceasefire Liberia. Tevah Platt diz em um relato do Staten Island Advance:

Ceasefire – a new project to launch this summer – seeks to draw African and African-American youth in equal numbers for a sustained, year-long program, prompting participants to tell their own stories. Its objective is to unite the two groups by turning participants into citizen journalists.

Meeting twice a month at the African Refuge youth center in Clifton, about 25 students participating in Ceasefire will use computers, cameras and Flip video cameras to compose short documentary films about their lives and neighborhoods.

Ms. Ackerman will lead workshops along with guest mentors, including journalists, photographers, musicians, poets and videographers.