No food for Lazy man

Introduction: We had a chat with Richedna, a young student from Liberia who was part of a management workshop managed by Planet Inaba.

Would you like to introduce yourself?
Hi, I’m Richedna Tobii from Liberia and I’m 17 years old. I am a student of Christ the King Catholic School and I’m in the 11th grade.

Nice to meet you! To start with, I would like to know a bit about how is the situation with education in Liberia:
Not that bad because… it depends. It is about you and what you want to do in life. Because if you don’t focus and you don’t know what you want you’ll be the one to bear the consequences. Here in Liberia we study a lot and try to be more focused because if we are not it is on us, and not the teachers.

Could you also explain a bit the general situation of life in Liberia?
Ah, in Liberia there’s this saying: “no food for lazy men”. So everybody has to work, work, work and work. Is a farmer’s land, yeah. Most of our parents, our forefathers were farmers.
So mostly we like rice and we like to eat food from the farm. So you see, even if there is a development going on with currency and water, once the president doesn’t donate rice, Liberians would say the president is not doing anything. The same as in your country, if they dont give hamburgers or pizza, they would say the president doesn’t do anything. One of the things we’re really facing here in Liberia is the old mentality. The change in mindsets of older people. Things have to always be the way they were

So your school was part of a Project from Planet Inaba. Could you explain a bit about what was the workshop you attended? Which knowledge did you get and think is important?
The lessons taught during the workshop with Planet Inaba was an awesome one and I acquired a lot of things. One is, learning how to spend my income wisely and for the rightful purpose instead of doing mismanagement.
The other one is believing in myself and not letting the inputs of others be a distraction, but rather focus on what I want to achieve and work towards it and utilize the skills I have within instead of being reluctant. The workshop made me know my place in life and what I am capable of. Like the business skills topic. It impacted me a lot and made me know my place of work, and that is, the soft business skills area.

I am a person who believes in cooperation and teamwork, so definitely when the topic was being discussed, I knew exactly where I belonged.

I also achieved this great mindset from the lessons taught, and that is, to always shine bright like a diamond, and be the head and not the tail and show the world what I’ve got within without any fear. Lastly, I was taught to always use the powerful three letters word “YET” and that particular lesson made a huge impact on my mindset because I used to be a person who felt comfortable saying I do not know certain things and I have no capability of learning those things, but the workshop made me to know that all things are possible to him that believe and you never try, you never know, so definitely I should always give a try to everything and be optimistic and make hay while the sun shines.

So you think Planet Inaba has impacted you? In which ways?
Planet Inaba impacted me a lot. Firstly, I’d like to say that Planet Inaba has impacted me with a lot of knowledge that I’ve learned to live my life. Planet Inaba has made me know how to make the best of every moment in life. It’s also good to know that I had a lot of challenges but in the end it was all for my own good and will teach me a lot of lessons. Firstly with career guidance. You know, here in Liberia, if you want to do something, people will say to not do this, do not do that, because you are slow. Because I remember I wanted to be an air hostess. But when I said I wanted to be that, others said you can’t be an air hostess, you are very slow, you are very lazy… Planet Inaba has helped me acknowledge that people’s opinion about me doesn’t matter. Matters what I think about myself. Planet Inaba made me realize that I have a lot of aptitudes within and not to listen about what others have to say about me. It made me know that it depends on me to make a change in the society in my country Liberia.

Now I would like to know your opinion on Planet Inaba in general. Do you think this approach that Planet Inaba has (give the materials / knowledge to make the youth self-sufficient) is important?
Yes, I think it is very much important. I mean the greatest gift anyone could give to you is knowledge. Knowledge and time. So the fact that Planet Inaba has taken their own time to give it to us and teach us is a very good idea and a great help to us. Because here in Liberia not many people want to share what they know. If a person knows how to do this or to do that, that person will keep the knowledge and not want to share with us. And if he or she dies, the knowledge dies with them. Liberians (older) are like this. That’s why Planet Inaba gives us ideas how to make our own future/lives. I appreciate it a lot. My colleagues also appreciate it.

What do you see yourself doing in the future? After what you’ve learned thanks to Planet Inaba
Well I see myself making changes in the society. I wanna be a sociologist and I love dealing with people and also handling problems in the society. That’s why I would love to be a sociologist so that I will be a great help with the problems that my society is facing so it can grow and progress.

And you think Planet Inaba can help you also prepare for this?
Yes, Planet Inaba can help me and has helped me in some ways with some knowledge that I will be able to give back to my peers and my society. Planet Inaba has helped us to know who we really are. To make us recognize our inner attributes. because sometimes people will have this thing inside but will be afraid of speaking up in this society. But Planet Inaba has taught us to be advocates instead of sitting and not doing anything. So it has helped in a lot of ways

What would your message to Planet Inaba be?
Planet Inaba is a very great organization and I want them to continue to help the youth of Liberia and other countries, but most especially Liberia because here in Liberia the youth really need to be taught. Because everybody has this old way of thinking and that’s not going to help us. With the knowledge that Planet Inaba has brought to us, who participated in the workshop, is going to make a great change in the mentality. Because here we make a lot of mistakes without even knowing it, because it’s out of ignorance. But with the help that Planet Inaba has given us I believe that some way or the other we can make our society a better place. Written by: Rocio