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. 

Beatrice and her pastor husband are parents to four children ranging in age from 9 to 17. That means four times the school costs in addition to the needs of everyday life. Beatrice also graduated from a soap-making class in March 2020, just before the pandemic started. 

Through the classes, women learn to make both bar and liquid soap and have the opportunity to participate in additional business-related training. After graduation, they are well-equipped to support their families, which will in turn transform their communities. 

“I felt too happy to graduate, and God gave me life and the idea to go to school and learn these things so I can help myself and help my family,” Beatrice explains.  

She also adds that, “[The women in the program and I] are friends now, and we are happy to be together.”  

The fellowship fostered through each vocational class is strong, and it is already strengthening the larger community. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the women who are a part of the soap-making class distributed soap to hundreds of people who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford this necessary virus-prevention tool. Another class teaches women tailoring; they, too, distributed their products in the form of face masks. The women in both classes wanted to use what they learned to help those around them.  

“I can now help my neighbors so they can be happy about me,” Beatrice says. “Because I learned these things, people know me now, so I’m so happy to be graduating.” 

Learn more about the Christmas Project here.

Learn more about the Empowering Women With Dignity courses here.