Speech Delivered By Anthony V. Kesselly At Inaugural Program
Minnesota Mandingo Association

Eastside Neighborhood Service
1700 2nd Street, Northeast
Minneapolis, Minnesota

January 12, 2998

I am exceedingly pleased to be among you here tonight. Our community today is not in any short supply of very competent and highly inspiring personalities who could satisfy your desire for a keynote speaker for this auspicious occasion.  To have me as your choice for this very important role is, to me, a high honor. 

President-Elect Musa Kamara (who also happens to be my former Paramount Chief and Member of the House of Representatives) and your corps of officers, who have just signed yourselves up as the new slaves (I repeat, the new slaves) of the Minnesota Mandingo Association, I extend you my thanks and appreciation. I am sure you understand when I label you slaves. If you don’t, just ask yourselves these few questions:  Who set this place up for this program tonight? Who brought all the food here tonight?  Who will stay here after the program to clean up the mess we will make tonight?  Was it the ordinary membership or the leadership?

OLM President Kerper Dwanyen, I am honored to share this stage with you tonight. Emerging with such an overwhelming victory in a very hotly contested election, you really must be made of steel.  Now that the elections are in our rear view mirror, you have on your hands a Herculean task to move this community, which includes this very Minnesota Mandingo Association, forward. As a long time friend, a friendship spanning nearly two decades now, I place myself at your disposal for any assistance you may stand in need of, which may fall within my sphere of influence.  Again I say congratulations.

Officers and members of the Minnesota Mandingo Association, you have given me a great task tonight.  You desire that I speak to you on the topic, “THE ESSENCE OF LIBERIAN ORGANIZATIONS IN COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT.”  This is indeed a big topic.   I can benefit from some help here.

Let me not mind the risk of being considered as timid. Let me bravely request of you a small modification of this obviously huge topic.  I beg that you permit me to insert one word—let me add a simple adjective “Diaspora” to the word “LIBERIAN” in the topic you have assigned me.  This done, the topic will be appropriately narrowed to read, “The Essence of Diaspora Organizations in Community Empowerment.” 

I am here employing the word, “Diaspora” to adjust the scope of the topic.  And, by so narrowing the topic, we are ensuring two outcomes:
—1) the topic is now slightly confined to an area wherein I feel a bit more secure.  This is an area in which we have specific long experience and involvement. 
-- 2) it will no longer require the whole night to struggle to lecture on such an all-encompassing topic.  I thank you for your understanding.
 
There are myriads of Liberian organizations in the Liberian Diaspora, especially in the Diaspora in the United States.  Each and every one of these organizations has its set of goals and objectives.  I will venture to enumerate a few categories of Liberian organizations in the Diaspora.  The principal categories of Liberian organizations are:

Liberian community associations
Liberian religious (Christian & Muslim organizations)
Liberian national county associations
Liberian school alumni associations
Liberian women associations
Liberian youth associations
Liberian social services delivery organizations
Liberian political movements
Liberian sports associations
Liberian immigration advocacy organizations, and of course we have
Liberian ethnic organizations

All of these organizations service various sectors and segments of our communities.  And almost all of them lay some claim to the community empowerment mission.  I will however focus much of my discussion on Liberian community associations.  At the top of all of these we have the one organization that we all as Liberians in the American Diaspora can claim membership to, the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas (ULAA).

Community Empowerment   

Let us see what this whole concept of empowerment is. Scrolling through the Website of the World Bank, I picked up some generally accepted perspectives on EMPOWERMENT that I am about to share with you.

On PovertyNet, a segment of that World Bank Website, Empowerment is defined as “The process of increasing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes.”

 “Central to this process are actions which both build individual and collective assets, and improve the efficiency and fairness of the organizational and institutional context which govern the use of these assets.”

Simply put, “Empowerment is the process of increasing the assets and capabilities of individuals or groups to make purposive choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes.”

When a community is empowered, its members have freedom of choice and action.  Such freedom enables them to better influence the course of their lives and the decisions which affect them.

In essence empowerment speaks to self determined change. It implies bringing together the supply and demand sides of development.  It involves changing the environment within which poor people live and helping them build and capitalize on their own attributes.

Empowerment is a cross-cutting issue. From education and health care to governance and economic policy, activities which seek to empower poor people are expected to increase development opportunities, enhance development outcomes and improve people's quality of life.

With this perspective on empowerment, who here can identify one community organization that will shy away from embracing empowerment? 
Organizations (not only Liberian organizations) claim, as their raison d’etre, the provision of those service that are critical to alleviating hardships by accessing the exigencies of the lives of their members and or those they serve.

Needless to say here, community organizations are formed by groups of people with common interests. These groups can be academic, cultural, religious, professional, social, sports, gender, and ethnic (such as the Minnesota Mandingo Association). 

The objectives or reasons which bring people together can vary from tangible to non-tangible purposes, including emotional support, development-orientation, financial support, political, advocacy for social justice and social service.

Since the 1990's, Liberian communities in the United States have witnessed a surge in the population of their communities due to the arrival of Liberians in the United States en masse through many different programs, including refugee resettlement, Diversity Visa Lottery and Asylum. The arrival of these Liberians brought with it appended diverse communities reflected in our ethnicities, academic background, professional development, political orientation or persuasions and social interest.

Self-identify is a natural reaction for anyone in a strange environment such as the United States to primarily maintain his cultural identity and promote communal interaction.  Also, to avoid or minimize a disconnect in the relationship between each other and the community both in the Diaspora and at home, individuals create community organizations to serve these purposes.

Community organizations therefore sprout up to fill this void.  The hope is that by individual members coalescing their energies, resources, and time, they can increase their capacity and empower themselves.  As you can see the goal is lofty.  

As community organizers and activists ourselves, we cannot but applaud our people for organizing themselves at different levels across the length and breadth of the continental United States. 

Above it all, we must give credit to those who, decades back, envisaged and undertook the formation of a single national Liberian organization, ULAA, for Liberians to speak in one voice as they sought the welfare of their kinsmen in the Diaspora of the United States. 

Since then, this entity has served as an instrument of advocacy for an equitable socio-economic opportunity in Liberia for all Liberians, bearing in mind that one day most of them will return to Liberia to more directly contribute to the socio-political development of their country.

Do we need several community organizations in the United States?  This begs the question, “Does our success lie in the quantity or the quality of organizations that we create?”  The answer to this question lies in a premise that is based on the specific objectives of our community organizations in the United States and the demand for national reconstruction in post-war Liberia.

Many of our community organizations have specific missions and are contributing to the post-war reconstruction of Liberia within the context of their missions. For example, some of our alumni and ethnic organizations are making tremendous contributions to the physical development of their alma mater and counties, villages and towns. These contributions are supporting the overall reconstruction plan of our national government.

Two striking examples of county and alumni associations that have made stunning contributions, in my narrow view, are: the Grand Gedeh Association and the B.W.I. Alumni association.

(1) An Administration of the Grand Gedeh Association took over with just barely  $ 2,600 dollars and at its exit from power had generated around $ 30,000.00.  And that was not all.  It also had sent critically needed medical supplies to a major hospital in the county.  Even further, it had set up a scholarship fund in the areas of Health and Teaching for persons desirous of serving the county.

(2) Good leadership of the B.W.I. Alumni Association has been able to steer the organization to undertake worthy projects on the campus of the institution running around $ 50,000.00.  In fact the Organization has so impressed the Liberian Government with its remarkable performance that a seat has been assigned to the Association on the Institution’s Board of Trustees.   

A good number of Liberian organizations are contributing to their communities in Liberia while at the same time they are serving as sources of strength and support for their kinsmen in the United States. Many of our organizations have organized support mechanisms to assist their fellow men in their resettlement in the United States through job assistance, housing and financial assistance. We have seen an organization single-handedly come to the rescue of one of its own in desperate situations and circumstances such as death and bereavement.

Those community organizations established to serve as watch-dog groups for political reform in our country are also contributing their share to enhancing and strengthening our democracy.

However, while we laud the efforts all of these organizations, we want to also highlight the negative aspects of so many organizations duplicating the functions of one another. We must begin to think about consolidating our resources in order to make a greater impact on our diverse communities. There should be no reason for few persons from the same county, village and town to leave one organization and form another organization similar to one deserted to serve the same people. This can lead to fragmentation of our strength and therefore undermine the purpose for our very existence. It also sends a wrong message of disunity to the constituencies we pledge to serve, thus eroding their confidence in our pubic pronouncement to seek their welfare.

Fellow Liberians, I hope I have been able to underscore the essence of some of our organizations in empowering our respective separate parochial communities and to our collective community, our common patrimony, Liberia.

Universally, community organizations are organized principally out of altruistic motivations.  Community activists and organizers want to do nothing else but good.  They want to serve.  They want to give their time, resources, energy, etc for the betterment of the collective.

Do not be caught off guards however.  It is not uncommon that we find some individuals undertake the creation of an organization on motives far removed from altruism.  

In terms of negotiations, they often say, “The devil is in the details.”  As to the direction of community organizations, however, I say, the devil is usually found in the hidden motivations of its organizer or organizers. 

While many Liberian organizations have made genuine efforts to remain relevant and essential to the overall search for the empowerment of the communities they serve, we still see an equal number acting to the contrary.  Not infrequently, we have seen egotistical and other sinister interests propelling people to launch organizations. 

There are pitfalls that must be avoided in an organization’s drive to serve its community on the foundation of altruism—in a search to effect empowerment.
___________________
An organization will inarguably find itself grounded on an unreliable foundation if the organizers have motivations (agenda hidden) apart from its stated objectives.
___________________
Those who step forward and give themselves in service to organization must be ready not only to lead but also to follow others in leadership.
___________________
Ascending to leadership position does not endow godly powers or divine wisdom upon anyone.  A leader, though he may have his own vision and special qualities, should largely operate on the synthesis of mandates given by the collective.
___________________
Conversely, the rank and file membership must also know that the leaders do not have powers of a Messiah who went to the mountain top and had Manna falling upon his people.

It is very unlikely that an un-empowered organization can empower any community.  Organizations should therefore seek to stabilize themselves by ensuring the rule of law and commonality of purpose. 

Many Liberian organizations today lie in comma having been caught in internal strife.  Usually, conflicts arise over interpretation or even very glaring violations of the rules that the leaders swear at induction ceremonies to defend and uphold. 

It doesn’t require courses in Rocket Science for one to observe that, to make our organizations viable and relevant, they must first find self-empowerment.  Only in so doing can such organizations find their essence to this most pressing task of community empowerment.

I enjoin you, officers and members of the Mandingo Association of Minnesota, to direct your energy first at empowering your Association; and by so doing your would have thrust the organization into a position from whence it can strive to empower its target constituencies.

I thank you very much.