Lizzie fundraising for Buduburam Kitchen Project

The Liberian Refugee camp in Buduburam, Ghana is a place largely forgotten by the international community. The people on the camp struggle daily to find food and fresh water. What support the UNHCR once offered has been withdrawn and the refugees, caught between the unsympathetic Ghanaian population and the risks and challenges of returning home to a struggling Liberia, are without aid and out of options. This is where The SCHEF Organization begins its story.

Shelter. Clothing. Health care. Education. Food: the five basic needs of the refugee population and the meaning behind SCHEFO. While our name and vision encompass far broader goals, we recognize that we must begin our work with the most vulnerable and marginalized members of the refugee community: single mothers and their children. Thus SCHEFO's first initiative, the Buduburam Kitchen Project, provides holistic support and capacity building to single mothers and their children who have been forced into commercial sex work as a result of the conditions on the camp.

March 2010, Ghana: SCHEFO is founded by Camilla Hermann, Keith Kortu, Lizzie Glaeser, Anna Bjerknes, Jerry Braimah, and members of the Liberian Refugee Camp. Keith and Jerry have been working at the refugee camp with the women’s advocacy group WISE for almost a decade gaining experiences with the camps’ unique transient-turned-permanent population. In Buduburam, many women are unable to provide for their families, especially the vulnerable teenage and single mothers. These women have often suffered sexual abuse and are frequently forced to trade sex for a meal for their children or a place to sleep. Keith and Jerry help manage this difficult situation by providing social support resources through WISE, but many basic needs of the Liberian residents are not met. Buduburam’s near 60,000 residents face daily starvation, sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, as well as sickness and disease.

Camilla, Lizzie, and Anna are undergraduate students at New York University. They studied abroad in Accra, Ghana in the spring of 2010. Camilla and Lizzie began working at the camp daily, assisting Keith and Jerry with support services, but knew that they had more to give. Anna began coming to the camp after hearing Camilla and Lizzie’s initial experiences and now the three are committed to making a difference. Each comes to the table with difference experiences and strengths, and all are determined to create positive change for the Liberian refugees.

Six months later, SCHEFO is a non-profit working bi-continentally in New York City and on the Buduburam Camp in Ghana (Pending 501c3 US status). The first two major initiatives are the Buduburam Kitchen Project to feed and educate one hundred single mothers and their children daily, as well as the BUDU a fair trade fashion line. The garments for BUDU are made by the women of Buduburam for fair trade wages and will be sold in the US starting in October with all proceeds going toward SCHEFO’s Teaching Kitchen.

So why did three college students reach out to the refugees of Buduburam? Because we can. Because if we don’t no one else will. Because sometimes the only justification for having is giving. Now, this is what we do. Now, this is who we are.