Liberia Seeks Peace Through Forgiveness

A groundbreaking Forgiveness Education program initiated by the International Forgiveness Institute (IFI) has positively impacted the lives of more than 8,000 people in Liberia, West Africa, over the past five years. The objective of that program is to “help plant the seed of forgiveness in the hearts of people in post-war communities to spur reconciliation and national cohesion.”
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The Liberia Forgiveness Education Program (LFEP) is an initiative organized and funded by the IFI in conjunction with Church Aid Inc. (CAI), the relief and development arm of the Apostolic Pentecostal Church International. Liberia was targeted for the program in the aftermath of a horrendous 15-year civil war that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 250,000 Liberians from 1989-2004 and the displacement of more than a million others from their homes.
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“There is still a serious need to bring closure to the civil war and that means reconciliation through forgiveness,” according to Bishop Kortu K. Brown, Chairman/CEO of Church Aid and National Coordinator of the LFEP. “If Liberians will forge peace and reconciliation, they must forgive. Without forgiveness there will be no genuine reconciliation.” 
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Forgiveness Education class at Mother Tegeste Stewart Apostolic Pentecostal School in Brewerville, Monrovia, Liberia.

Bishop Brown has been working with IFI co-founder Dr. Robert Enright to implement elementary and secondary school Forgiveness Education initiatives (including for all 500 students at the Mother Tegeste Stewart Apostolic Pentecostal School in Brewerville), after-school forgiveness education clubs, and Sunday School forgiveness lessons. Since 2017, Group Forgiveness interventions also have been incorporated into the LFEP thanks to Bishop Brown’s significant role in governmental affairs.

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Last year, for example, Bishop Brown was appointed  to the Nimba County Conflict Resolution Committee by Liberian President Dr. George Manneh Weah. That Committee mediates post-civil war land disputes that have recently become violent. Bishop Brown and Dr. Enright then jointly developed a strategy for the Committee’s initial session called “Reconciliation Through Forgiveness: A Program Concept for Community Bridge-Building” that included a 3-day awareness workshop on healing and reconciliation for 150 community, religious, and governmental leaders. 
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“I suggested that approach, in all humility, because dialogue will not be fruitful if those engaging in the dialogue are still very angry about past grievances,” Dr. Enright explained. “Forgiveness is a scientifically-supported way of eliminating that anger.” 

Dr. Robert Enright (via Skype) and Bishop Kortu Brown, LFEP national coordinator, hosted a forgiveness seminar called “Renewing Communities Through Forgiveness Education” on May 13, 2022 in Brewerville, Liberia.

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Bishop Brown said he totally agrees with Dr. Enright’s assessment: “I think that interventions like the Enright Group Forgiveness process are critical to bringing peace and harmony to the communities we seek to serve in Liberia.”
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In addition to being Chairman/CEO of CAI, Bishop Brown is the General Overseer of the New Water in the Desert Apostolic Pentecostal Church in Brewerville, and president of both the Liberia Council of Churches (LLC) and the Inter-Religious Council of Liberia (IRCL). Despite dealing with thousands of local deaths due to the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak and the nation-wide lockdown of schools due to COVID-19, Bishop Brown has persistently pursued forgiveness initiatives in the four-county area that encompasses the capital city of Monrovia.
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Liberia is Africa’s oldest independent nation and one of the country’s poorest. It was established by freed slaves from the United States in 1847. With 75% of its population being youth under the age of 25, about half of all Liberians live on less than two US dollars a day, according to the World Bank. In Monrovia, less than half the city’s 1.5 million people have access to working toilets, according to Liberia’s Water and Sewer Corporation.
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“Our program for peace, based on forgiveness education, is possibly one of the major answers to societal and individual unrest within communities beset by poverty and violence,” Dr. Enright added. “I believe it is the missing piece to the peace puzzle.”
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