Yandouba Monahan

Once a Refugee from War torn Serra Leone

I was born and raised Freetown, Sierra Leone, Africa. When the civil war started in 1992 my family and I fled to Guinea, where we lived among thousands of displaced countrymen. Having family members in Guinea made us one of lucky few to sleep under the roof. As a teenage girl who led a relatively comfortable middle-class existence back in Freetown, I couldn’t help noticing women and children on street corners of Conakry, Guinea who had no place to go. Everywhere I went I saw the sad faces of distress, hopeless mothers starring into space while their children clung to them crying from hunger. Guinea was a small, impoverished country, and its government simply couldn’t house all refugees. These were proud people of Sierra Leone who once had a home and were now homeless with nothing to look forward to. These were women who once had husbands and now bodies of their beloveds lay down in abandoned streets of Freetown and children, who once went to school and now were asked to deal with problems even grownups could not deal with. Although I had much to be thankful for, I felt the same way: After all, I, too, was a refugee.

Among the crowds, I ran into desperate faces of my friends and former neighbors on those foreign streets. I brought them home and offered them shelter, but our family’s little home was soon overburdened. We couldn’t feed and house everyone, and yet the tidal wave of need continued. I wrote letters to businesses for donations; the responses were immediate and wonderful, we got food in abundance, and convinced many Guinean citizens to house refugees. We had enough food - but I needed to do more. I wanted to teach my people independence in a foreign-speaking country. In Sierra Leone, the official language is English, but in Guinea they speak French. It was vital that we learned to communicate in our new home, and I made it my mission to improve my own French-speaking skills and teach my people in turn. As the saying goes, “If you give a person a fish, they will eat for a day; teach them to fish, they will eat for a lifetime.”

My displaced friends also needed job skills. Since my father is a professional designer and tailor, we taught the women how to sew and sold the clothing to stores at wholesale prices. We used donated materials and resold the clothing to the donors themselves. It was a beautifully successful entrepreneurship that helped many to become self-sufficient enough to rent their own homes.

This was my first taste of the power of empowerment, and it was a turning point for me. Knowing how much is possible with a little education has strengthened my determination to give back to the women of Africa and other impoverished regions all the more. It’s incredible how much my people can do with so little. All they need is a little help at the start, and soon they are helping themselves and each other.

But first, I had to empower myself. It was time to embrace what the future had in store for me and pursue my own education. I quickly enrolled in French school for a year. My improved language skills helped me find a job as a bilingual secretary at Belleview Airlines. Two years later, the company went bankrupt. I had a choice: quickly search for another job so I could help my family put food on the table, or chase a bigger dream. I decided to apply for a visa to the U.S.
Life in America

I travelled to America with $38.00 in my pocket. When I arrived at JFK airport, I realized that I didn’t have enough money to get to my final destination; Gaithersburg, Maryland where I had friends. But I was too excited about the possibilities of my new home to be scared. As a Good Samaritan drove me from JFK to Port Authority at no cost; a great adventure was about to begin.

Finding work was a struggle. My first job was in an adult care facility in Virginia. I sent half of my first paycheck home to my family. Being self-sufficient in a foreign land made me feel like I could do anything, but the road to success was very far away yet. After six months I felt that familiar hunger to do more and I decided to move to New York.

Like most immigrants, I was dazzled by the tall buildings and lights of Times Square. It seemed like a city of dreams fulfilled. But my own existence was more of a nightmare. I stayed in Washington Heights where I shared a small apartment with a couple. My rent was $380/month; my income varied from $600/month to $1000/month. But I somehow managed to send money back home. I preferred to go hungry than think of my family in Africa without food on the table.

Through all my suffering days, I was aware of public assistance but couldn’t bring myself to accept it. I thought it will mean that I was a loser or a failure at the time. However, I couldn’t say no to “Benefit Card and HIP” that was given to me when I was granted an asylum in 2002; which was very useful temporarily.

Pursuing different jobs was on the map; Bartending, Hostess, Modeling, Fitness Personal Trainer, and now a New York State Licensed Real Estate Agent.
But something had always been a miss; this missing sphere led me to think very hard as to where I came from. I had been hustling to survive in America; getting my legal papers, working minimum wages, worrying about how to pay my bills, rent and support my family in Africa.  I was distracted from my original goal in coming here. Multiple families in Africa found a home and were fed daily due to my financial support, but it still wasn’t enough.

That’s why Yandouba Global Initiative was born – a for-profit enterprise that enables micro-loans to empower women in Africa through education and business initiatives. I am taking all I have learned in the realm of business, health and beauty to create a line of all-natural base skin care products formulated with ingredients that originated from Africa: YGI Soin de Peau.

A percentage of profits of YGI Soin de Peau will be used in developing Africa and aiding the under-privileged globally. Enabling women of Africa by teaching entrepreneurship like I did in the past; building schools, hospitals that will slowly and steadily enable millions to independence. Our goal is to reach out to the world and empower women around the world and children of Africa to interact with the rest of the world as Engineers, Chemists, IT professionals, Doctors. This is a new model of entrepreneurship that will provide enough jobs for people of Africa, a land rich in natural and human resources that can be so much more than it is today.

Manufacturers of goods that can be exported throughout the world- an equal and fair interaction! This isn’t much to ask based on the resources we have, and how Africa is being exploited and ruined, primarily by Africans. We need a source of national and regional pride that takes us far beyond the tribal conflicts and corruption that destroyed millions of lives in my native Sierra Leone.

This is the Africa I want! Not the Africa that many private international corporations exploit because we have incompetent, greedy, ignorant, shameless, and heartless leaders who’re not patriotic!

I believe there are many Africans out there who share my passion and goals, but they just can’t figure out how and where to start. Today I am calling on all patriotic Africans, whether you live in Africa, U.S.A. or Europe; we have to do this and do it together. We must! We, the Africans! No one can do it for us if we do not stand up and be united over a common goal and purpose. We must say enough is enough, and put aside all tribal bickering! Please join me….