AFRICA

Kimmie Weeks

African Youth Flees Homeland to Work for Peace

“Young people here have to realize their blessings and appreciate them and they have to extend a helping hand to children out there…. I saw children spend long days on the streets of the capital under the blazing African sun trying to sell goods for their families to survive, while thousands of others carried guns, fighting and killing one another.”

Kimmie Weeks was born in the West African nation of Liberia. From 1989 until 1997, the people of Liberia lived in a state of civil war, which took the lives of one tenth—ten percent—of the population. The conflict was so ugly that 20,000 children under the age of 18 were turned into soldiers.

Weeks describes his own childhood as one of war, poverty and suffering. At age ten he decided to make a difference. He founded two children’s organizations to fight for the rights of children. He created a news service for youth. And in 1996, he launched the Children's Disarmament Campaign to get guns out of the hands of child soldiers. That campaign succeeded.

Weeks was honored for his efforts at the Goodwill Games as a UNICEF Young Ambassador. In 1997 he published a new report on the training of child soldiers and had to flee Liberia, his life in jeopardy.

Kimmie Weeks has been granted political asylum in the United States. In 2002 he co-founded Youth Action International. The goal of the organization is to propose and implement programs aimed at making the world a better place for children and future generations.