Every Saturday from 10 to 11 a.m. a group of amputees limp through the downtown area of Monrovia — some on crutches, some in wheelchairs — asking store owners if they can spare five Liberian Dollars. Whatever the men collect they share amongst the group. This is the same group that begs outside Abi Jabi’s, the local supermarket, during the week, taking turns holding a wooden box in the hopes of collecting enough money for an evening meal.

Seeing poverty in Africa is not surprising. Even seeing young men begging on the street for the equivalent of 10 cents is not a shock (it happens in New York City as well). But the part of this equation that baffles me, is that some of these young men who beg on Randall Street and sleep on the beach are the same youth who are praised and handed medals out on the soccer field. On the one hand they are outcasts, marginalized from the larger community for their role in the war, and on the other hand they are held up as symbols of hope for their country.

I ask Reverend Jervis Witherspoon, the executive director of the National Commission on Demobilization, Disarmament, Rehabilitation, and Reintegration, who helped start the amputee soccer league, about this exact issue. His face turns serious as he answers. “If I was President I would do things differently,” he says. “It looks bad that those guys are going around representing the country and they don’t have work and their living on the beach. Even if we sit them behind a desk, it will keep them off the streets.”

To see all the films related to this project go to the film page.