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Kick for Your Future! - A youth project in Monrovia's slumsHundreds of thousands of people were displaced during Liberia's 14-year-long civil war. Before the war, 470'000 people lived in Monrovia, the capital city; since then the population has tripled, and today the city has a population of 1.5 million.
 The slums on the outskirts of the city mostly have no infrastructure, electricity or water, are overpopulated and mainly inhabited by children and young people; they belong to the generation that had no possibility of attending school during the war. The unemployment rate among young people is staggering because the Liberian post-war economy is too weak to absorb the labour potential. The refugees pressing into the capital city have worsened the already precarious sanitation situation, and huge waste mountains are piling up in the streets and on the shores, causing an increased risk of infections and epidemics.
 Our project wants to help reduce youth unemployment and improve the practical basic training. Through the combination of waste management with soccer and cultural activities the youth shall be kept from the streets; they shall have the opportunity to deal with their difficult past and cultivate the social fabric, thus having the chance of gaining new perspectives. On the other hand, the project aims at sensitising the local population for the sustainable use of natural resources; informing them about proper waste disposal and hygiene; organising the collection of waste in the whole area of the communities.
 In the three slum communities participating in cooperaxion's project, three girls soccer teams and two boys soccer teams of twenty members each have been chosen. In six of the twelve teams the members are between 12 and 16 years old; in the other six the members are between 16 and 24. Also, each slum has a musical and drama group with twenty members. The teams will be taken care of by professional coaches, a man and a woman for every team, who will organise the sports and cultural activities. The soccer teams have training sessions three times a week, and the music and drama groups also rehearse three times a week. Friendly games with other street-soccer teams will be organised regularly; the sports highlight will be organising a soccer tournament twice a year; the cultural highlight will be showing plays also twice a year.
 All young people participating in the project also have to participate in their communities' weekly waste collections. The partner organisations will organise workshops on proper waste management and hygiene education for young people and civil organisations; they will also organise local information campaigns. Finally, in cooperation with other communal interest groups, lobbying processes will be set up mainly on the community and municipal level to develop an encompassing and sustainable waste management concept.
 Combat Stress Liberia Inc. (CSLI) is a Liberian NGO with over 14 years of experience. Their main objective is to improve, on a long-term basis, the circumstances of the disadvantaged population in Monrovia's slums. The charismatic leader Genevieve Freeman-Massa was able, thanks to local and international support, as well as her own initiative and courage, to build up schools and other youth projects even during the civil war. Their long-standing experience in project work under difficult conditions makes CSLI and Genevieve Freeman-Massa trustworthy partners for the realisation of continuous youth projects that will improve the situation in the slums of Liberia's capital.
 Youth for Community Academic and Development Services (YOCADS) is a Liberian students' organisation which has been active in programmes for reducing poverty on the national and international level for seven years. YOCADS has done a lot of information and sensitisation work in the scope of the U.N.'s millennium campaign for reducing poverty. YOCADS has a small project headquarters in the centre of Monrovia; in the slums they have a network of motivated and capable youth workers. All of them have the expertise and the knowledge of the local circumstances, both of which are preconditions for project work that is to be successful.
 300 young people between 12 and 24 are directly involved in cooperaxion ’s Monrovia project. 174'000 people live in the three slum communities Clara Town, Old Road und Sonewein, who should all be reached, directly or indirectly, through the youth’s waste awareness-raising campaign. The initial project will run from January 2008 to December 2009 with an overall budget of CHF 250’000.
 In the next project stage, beginning 2010, the infrastructure for football training and cultural activities shall be improved: Clara Town’s football field should be dehydrated, and a youth centre in Sonewein built. Secondly, the youth will be trained for leadership, so that they can lead negotiations with authorities to solve the waste problem in cooperation with them. Thirdly, and very important, is a greater involvement in education. Based on the experiences in the football and the waste projects, the participating youth shall be helped to find jobs in local shops; as a carpenter, a mechanic or a computer specialist, for example; through practical professional training and a job centre.
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