Empowerment Temple Celebrates 17 Years and HOPE Celebrates Eight Years
By Rev. Aisha Cooper Bruce, 14thEpiscopal District
Kindergarten class at HOPE (Helping our people excel), Monrovia, Liberia 2017.
In September 2001, the Rev. Katurah York Cooper established the Empowerment Temple AME Church in Monrovia, Liberia-West Africa. This ministry stands on three empowering pillars: spiritual, educational, and socio-economic. As the spiritual pillar grew stronger with souls saved and membership increase, the educational and socio-economic pillars gave birth to an elementary school and several community outreach programs.
In June 2010, Pastor Cooper met with the leadership of Empowerment Temple Liberia and proposed and received permission to establish Helping Our People Excel (HOPE), Inc. The purpose was to leverage the phenomenal successes of the educational and socio-economic pillars in order to attract resources from non-church institutions as well as national/international funding. HOPE became a registered not-for-profit and non-government organization at a critical time of need for human capacity uplift in post-war Liberia.
As we give thanks for 17 years of spiritually-transformative ministry, we highlight HOPE’s attainment of her first grant award from a foreign country, the United States of America, through the United States Agency for Development and Investment (USAID). In a competitive process involving 51 organizations, HOPE was one of seven non-profits qualified to participate in a national-level advocacy campaign to reform the education sector of Liberia. The total cost of the campaign for all seven organizations is estimated at $560,000 US dollars.
HOPE will implement a one-year budget advocacy campaign entitled, “Making the Budget Work for Education.” HOPE will train advocates to engage decision-makers on how to lobby with legislators and policymakers to influence their views on the national budget and its impact on education and certain population groups. The expected result is to increase government spending on education to the benchmark of 20% of Liberia’s national budget in 2018/2019.
At the USAID Grant Award Ceremony, HOPE was commended for her past leadership roles in the advocacy for the passage of the National Children’s Law and the drafting of the Manifesto for the Development and Empowerment of the Liberian Girl Child. In 2016, that Manifesto was endorsed by signature by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
What does all of this mean to almost two million Liberian children today? It translates into more money for more school buildings, more affordable schools, better-equipped classrooms, libraries and science laboratories in schools, more qualified teachers, and a chance for thousands of more children to sit in a classroom when the 2019 school year begins!
What does all of this mean to Pastor Cooper and the members of Empowerment Temple? It fulfils the mission of this local church: “Called to be an empowering agent for change in the church, the community and the nation.” Pastor Cooper says, “I am reminded of a line from the Episcopal Salutation in The Doctrine and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church(1996): [We must] ‘take a hard look at the political, economic, and educational systems which affect the very existence of our people.’ Empowerment Temple took a hard look and today this church is working to improve those systems for the benefit of our people.”
On Sunday, September 30, 2018, the Rev. Cooper led Empowerment Temple and guests in celebrating the 17thChurch Anniversary. At that occasion, a capital campaign fund for the Ceiling and Audio-Visual Project was launched and the Milestone Achievements of HOPE, Inc. was highlighted. We thank our members, friends, and the HOPE staff for their commitment and support over the years. We give God all the glory and we know the best is still ahead!
HOPE partners with several international, national, and community-based organizations. They include Let Girls Lead/Public Health Institute and Global Fund for Women; Gbowee Peace Foundation; Touching Humanity with Kindness (THINK); the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection’s (MGCSP) Adolescent Girl; Child Protection and Sexual Gender Based Violence Units; and the Ministry of Education’s (MoE) Girls Education Division. HOPE has implemented contracts for UNICEF and UNFPA. HOPE chairs the National Child Protection Secretariat and is a Member of the Technical Committee for the National Adolescent Girls Working Group.
The Rev. Aisha Cooper Bruce is the Executive Director of HOPE Inc. in Monrovia, Liberia in the 14th Episcopal District.
