MONROVIA, Montserrado – Sometime last year, newspapers carried stories of young mothers being detained at the nation’s biggest public referral medical center, John F. Kennedy Medical Center, for their inability to settle their maternal health services bills.

According to the reports, the mothers stayed at the hospital until good Samaritans helped them pay their hospital bills. These stories motivated the U.K.-based Liberian, Marie Collins, to launch an organization to help alleviate maternal health challenges faced by young mothers. The Mary Kwende Foundation, named in honor of Collins’ late grandmother, was officially launched in Slipway.

In an interview, Collins said she hopes to change the outcomes young mothers face “by providing person centered support to young mothers and children.”

She said her primary goal is to aid people in need and promote social welfare and wellness of families and their dependents, especially pregnant women and children.

“Through mentorship, we aim to motivate and empower individuals to become independent as they can be in society,” she said, reasoning that a successful mother would be better equipped to raise her child.

Mary Kwende Foundation founder, Marie Collins. Photo: Gbatemah Senah

At the launch ceremony, Collins announced that the foundation would soon begin providing life skills training opportunity for the women of Slipway and other needy communities across the country.

“We will also get women into work experience, into different businesses and into different fields,” she said, adding that the organization would partner with different businesses to help build the CVs of the women and help them acquire jobs.

The foundation provided scholarships to two underprivileged persons living in Slipway to attend any school of their choice in Monrovia. An additional two children from the community would also be vetted to attend schools in the community on the foundation’s scholarship.

The two initial scholarship beneficiaries were meanwhile provided reading materials, while several other children from the community also benefitted from a distribution of notebooks.

Collins said she is drawn to helping young mothers because she herself became a mother at the age of 18 while still living in Liberia. However, she said she did not let that be an excuse and that she wanted to use her story as a motivation to other young women in similar situations.

Mary Kwende Foundation’s executives and children of Slipway community; photo by Gbatemah Senah

The director of the foundation, Abraham Labella, praised community members for their willingness to work with the foundation, saying more benefits were underway.

Labella said while in the country, Collins would visit pregnant women and baby mothers at the Soniwen Clinic, where she would hear the stories of the women and present donations to the mothers.

Featured photo courtesy of the Mary Kwende Foundation