Coinciding with celebrations for International Women's Day 2014 on March 8th, the Department of Applied Social Studies and the Liberia Solidarity Group (LSG) welcome visitors to the Library at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth to explore the exhibition ‘A Celebration of Liberian Women’, launched on Thursday, March 6th.
The exhibition profiles women activists working at grassroots level in Liberia, documenting their work on addressing some of the major challenges that Liberian Women face in their daily lives. These include issues such as improving women’s leadership, access to resources and gender based violence. The exhibition uses text and images to explore the lived experiences of Liberian women and document innovative and groundbreaking projects where they collectively address their concerns. The exhibition is based on project work carried out by three students from the Department of Applied Social Studies during their recent placements in Liberia where they worked with different developments projects in diverse communities. Every year a number of students have the opportunity to work in Liberia, fulfilling the professional requirements of their Community and Youth Work Programmes.
Since the country emerged from the shadow of civil war in 2007, the Department of Applied Social Studies and LSG have developed strong links with Liberia, building a mutual learning partnership which promotes justice, peace, equality and human rights through collective action and sustainable development. Maynooth University Library recently further developed on that relationship by committing to provide the library at Cuttington University in Gbanga with surplus books from their collection.
The exhibition will be on display at the library over the coming weeks. Any enquiries regarding its content or the work of the Liberia Solidarity Group should be directed to: lsgireland@gmail.com