LRRRC Intensifies Data Collection For ‘Zogos’

By Reuben Sei Waylaun

The Liberia Repatriation and Resettlement Commission (LRRRC) has intensified data collection for those the commission calls National Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) or persons with special needs who have been described by Liberians and others as ‘zogos’ in the country.

LRRRC Executive Director Rev. Fester Logan

The data collection is part of the commission’s program to collect basic information on those with special needs, that have been caught directly associated with drugs, such as selling drugs, producing drugs or importing drugs.

The program is code named: ‘Disadvantage people assessment or mapping exercise implementation arrangement’. There are several communities that the program is currently taking place according to the LRRRC.

Those communities include WestPoint, center street, Jallah town, Clara Town, Vamomah, Old road community, Congo town to ELWA junction, ELWA junction to R2, Gobachop field pipeline duport, road PHP among others.

beneficiaries

Addressing some of the beneficiaries at the PHP community on Lynch street, the Executive Director of LRRRC, Rev. Fester Logan reminded the IDPs that they are aware of the role each of them played but was time that they rethink and look up to the future with the hope of changing their lives for the better.

The LRRRC’s boss said these vulnerable young people find themselves lost without skills and it was time under the administration of President George Manneh Weah to create hope for a better future for them.

“The CDC-led Government is concerned about some of these unfolding developments in the Country despite the constraints and challenges.  The commission and partners will continue to provide the needed support for you under the government’s pro-poor agenda policy,” Logan said.

The LRRRC’s boss also said all is not lost as the data collection continues. He said they are galvanizing resources aim at creating skill training programs and other vocation programs where those with special needs can rewrite the future.

For his part, the chairman of the PHP community, Abraham Bility has lauded the LRRRC for what he calls intervention to reintegrate those ‘zogos’ or people with special needs into the society.

Bility pledged the willingness of his leadership to work with the LRRRC’s field teams in ensuring that the needed data are collected for those people, something he said will ensure the success of the project.

At the same time, a former rebel general in Liberia, Dopoe Menkarzohn who is also partnering with the LRRRC in encouraging those ‘zogos’ has vowed to make this project a success.

Menkarzohn used the occasion to encourage those with special needs to feel free as the process is not to hunt them as done during the administration of former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf when police officers used to chase them.