ProPublica published this long story about how good intentions go bad. The story was also published in TIME magazine.
An idealistic young American woman goes to Liberia, wants to save young girls from poverty and sexual exploitation, and opens a school called “More Than Me.”
Her Liberian partner works diligently by her side to publicize the school and raise money. She wins an award of $1 million from J.P. Morgan Chase for her charitable work in Liberia. The founder was feted at the Forbes 400 awards, where she met some of the nation’s eminent philanthropists.
Meanwhile, her Liberian partner is indulging in his pleasure, which is raping the young girls enrolled in the school. He eventually dies of AIDS, having infected several children with the disease.
A very sad story.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
raping….not taping.
This is not the only case of do-gooders being exploited, in this case by the billionaires and the worker in the school.
Really tragic.
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What happened in that school is another preview of a world designed by Koch libertarian thinking where government is almost nonexistent and the oligarch masters of the private sector are free to do whatever they want t increase their fortunes and power without a government around to stop them.
A world were even dictators are kings are stripped of power and replaced with a dystopian kleptocracy designed by rich and powerful psychopaths just like Donald Trump.
Definition of kleptocracy: government by those who seek chiefly status and personal gain at the expense of the governed
“This is the destructionist agenda, led by Bannon and Trump’s cabinet (Trump’s Cabinet choices reflect deep Koch influence. A rundown of the people with ties to ALEC, the Koch brothers https://www.hcn.org/articles/donald-trumps-cabinet-choices-reflect-koch-influence), that wants to throw the baby out with bathwater, eliminating government and oversight entirely. Replace systems of government with kleptocratic business systems that you dare to call free markets. Reward those who buy into systems of greed, exploitation and hatred.”
View at Medium.com
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I’m sorry, but when you find your almost-boyfriend taking pictures of you and three little girls hugging in bed together, you really should know that you are WAAAAYYYYYY beyond “good intentions”.
Johnson may have been the one actually raping those girls, but Meyler herself was clearly addicted poverty porn. Her “charity” may seem altruistic, but, like people who adopt too many animals or children, it’s a sickness, somewhat related to hoarding. It’s a sense of grandiosity, control, ownership.
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To my knowledge, reputable educators do not get in bad with their students.
But look how many people she took in, starting with JP MorganChase.
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Holy cow. I call this: “CHILD TRAFFICKING”
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Because of course they should take over all the schools:
“Meyler had left Liberia the day after the trial began. She and Minister of Education George Werner had become a traveling double act, selling an idea to donors: If Liberia couldn’t manage its primary schools properly, why not let charities or private companies do it instead? Meyler said the government had asked MTM to take over 30 of its schools.”
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It’s weird that she’s only in the country two months a year. I know she’s supposedly attending fundraising events, but 10 months out of every 12?
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“The video concluded with text across a black screen, highlighting why audiences in the U.S. might want to hear Johnson’s tale: “If you’d like to be touched in the same way we all have been, invite him to your school, home, or church.””
OMG! I need a new monitor after spitting my drink on mine.
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OK, so you ruined mine!
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Liberia was started by American Methodists, members of the American Colonization Society, that wanted to resettle freed American slaves. They had good intentions, but no money or plan for the returning people. It has continued to be poor and struggling ever since. Here’s a brief history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Liberia
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To all conscientious gurus in educational field:
I miss reading all of your written contributions. To my own surprise, I just have recently and quickly weak knee caps and all joints in arm and leg. Yes, I must acknowledge the old age and the side effect of manufacturing bad medication in the name to keep a mild stroke to reoccur!!!
I have been thinking a lot about what we do TODAY intentionally that we will reap a result like a reward or a punishment in our near future within this life on Earth accordingly. We will not worry about karma in the next reincarnation.
For the past month, while I cannot walk, talk, or read as I wish to do, I only listen well to all old stories in the musical and historical drama of 12th – 19th centuries in the countries like England, Russia, China, Greek, Persia, and Mongolia. I just wonder how many YOUNG educators understand and acknowledge the reality in humanity.
I am saddened to acknowledge that I will depart soon from this beautiful Earth planet. There are some VERY basic principles or rules for all humans or all sentient beings to achieve the ultimate enlightenment for life.
1) There is no short cut for us to reach our ultimate goal regardless how strong, smart, and compassionate we can be.
2) We can support and motivate WITHOUT ENFORCING OR PUSHING OVER THE BOUNDARIES of ourselves and of others = try to perfectly pace our own path or to leave alone others’ path until we are satisfying, happy and contended.
3) We must recognize that people have their own ideas and own trials and errs to experience on their own, This means that the stronger, the smarter, the more kind and gentle people SHOULD NOT interfere or enforce the weaker, the less intelligent, the cruel and crude people to do against their wills.
4) I hope that it does not matter how many millions years, all sentient beings will walk through joy and sorrow in the peace and war eras. In the end, as long as people have their chance to acknowledge, to experience, to try their best and to vouch to be a complete human to themselves and to other savage beasts.
I have been there and done that in the past 50 years. At the age of 5 and 65, I intuitively understand and acknowledge God’s will that gives me lots of chances to be a complete human through all ups and downs hardship in a rough dark night China Sea and in turmoil, jealousy, hatred emotion from an ocean of all different racial human beings
.
I have been genius, then ignorant. I have been rich and overfed with best material supply, then poorest and starving with only bitter ocean water and wet 7 days no changed clothes.Yes, I was shivering and stinky, but I had full of hope from others’ given truthful kindness and compassion to bless me with a survival – Happy Thanksgiving from Strangers.
In short, being educational gurus, I wish and hope that your written blog will show all ignorant academic leaders, political authorities, corporate owners…what result they will reap from their intentional actions: good deed returns good deed – and evil follows evil.
I wish that all of you will have wonderful upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday.
Respectfully to all of you,
May King, faithful believer in your dedication of 20+ years of teaching career.
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Dear May,
On behalf of all of us who know you, I wish you a return to good health.
I have been missing your voice.
May many blessings come to you and restore your health and vigor,
Diane
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Dear May. This is so incredibly moving and beautiful. Love to you and yours.
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Dear Dr. Bob Shepherd:
It sounds not correctly to say sincerely appreciation to Dr. Ravitch at first. But I must say that I sincerely appreciate your words and Dr. Ravitch’s love which makes me to cry a bit = you and Dr. Ravitch empathize and understand my feeling.
Likewise, I really and truly feel sorry for ignorant and rich people who waste their own lives to intentionally harm other innocent lives on Earth.
Life is truly very simple to all who are eat well, sleep well, exercise well and heartily help other unfortunate within their own means of wealth, knowledge and experience.
Respectfully yours,
May King
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Dear May, You write beautifully. Know that many of us will read your words and sent our best to you. Feel better dear lady.
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😘 Thank you. May King.
Beautifully written thoughts.
Take care of yourself.
Sending you breath and love.
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Beautiful sentiments. We hope for your improvement.
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Most chilling line: “By 2021, the charity hopes to run 500 schools, reaching a quarter of a million students.”
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YES, that is scary. Katie is clueless. But like a true reformer, she knows money
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OMG…wretched. Charters = Jim Crow.
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Dearest Dr. Ravitch:
Truthfully, I really adore you and all of your supporters, all conscientious educational gurus in your blog. You and all of them are saints to me, beyond of just being human who I have gradually become after Northern Vietnam successfully invaded my southern Vietnam in the last 45 + years.
At first, I was disappointed and frustrated my own logical mind and versatile talents. After 40+ years trial and errs to utilize the utmost my intelligence, strength, endurance, compassion with condition as well as to go for a short cut by overuse my brain, and deplete my resting time each days for the first 20 years of being fresh out of boat immigrant. Now, being handicapped physically and memory thinking-wise,
I can laugh heartily at my own ambition as well as I can empathize to all corrupted, ignorant and rich and powerful leaders, authorities who forget that they will be six feet and under with lots of PAY BACK on their own soul alone!
In short, you and all of your supporters will achieve the ultimate happiness (=enlightenment) while all intentional ignorant people will forever suffer their own misery wherever they live rich or poor.
I always respect, adore and love you,
May, your secret admirer forever.
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You have been graced with an abundance of “intelligence, strength, endurance, compassion” in addition to raw courage beyond the experience of most of us. I am among those grateful for your contributions to this blog.
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Dear May,
Know that you, too, are held in the highest regard by this long-time reader. I am running (well, not quite–older legs her) to the “Women’s March to the Polls” in Chicago (but not exactly to “march to the polls” TODAY, which is what people are doing: we from Clean Count Cook County are urging folks to vote ON ELECTION DAY (as I would urge all of you here), because “paper is safer.” (I will write more about that in comments later, because this is off-thread & I’ve gotta go!).
That having been said, May, wishing you the best for renewed health & vigor.
& you certainly don’t need that last wish in the courage & brains department: you have both in abundance.
Love & best wishes to you, & thank you for your always wise & encouraging comments on this blog,
RBMTK
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This is heartbreaking. Yes, there is this heedlessness among reformers, who are so often like drunks cheerfully plowing through a crowd of pedestrians.
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Sigh
I stopped reading the linked article after her “my love is enough to change the world” bit… if I was a woman opening a school for girls in Liberia, I think my first choice for assistance with this project would be a Liberian woman. Just sayin’.
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Near the end of the article we learn Meyler was herself molested at age 11 by a minister. This would have something to do with her youthful zeal to help girls of that age (many of them similarly victimized)– managing to select a sexual predator to run the mission– becoming emotionally entangled w/him while blindly enabling him to victimize her charges despite red flags all around. It’s a splashy version of a sad old story.
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Sickening.
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Katie’s kind of an idiot.
For example, WHY ON EARTH HAS SHE NOT TAKEN DOWN THIS FACEBOOK PAGE (including a picture with her and her child rapist / boyfriend on stage together)
https://www.facebook.com/events/1416811888554339/
Scroll down and see Katie and her child rapist / boyfriend posing with Santa Claus.
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She is a tourist, using children for her glory.
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When I first read this, I was hoping against hope that this was a hoax exposed on Snopes.
Sadly—MOST sadly–factual news.
WTF is WRONG w/people?
Wait–these aren’t people–not fit to be categorized as human beings.
Just when you think you’ve read/seen everything…
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Meyler’s background reveals a lot. Poor ‘white trash’ [her words] family living on fringe of one of the wealthiest towns in NJ; drug-addicted father & uncle [dec. heroin OD] & [functionally-] alcoholic eventually-single mother working 3 jobs; unspecified family ‘abuse’; age 11 molested by local minister; age 16 inspired by evangelical sect propelling her into intl missions where she could help profoundly poor, sexually-exploited girls (Central America; back to US to finish college; Liberia since early 20’s).
Addiction to new-&-easy GoFundMe-style $-raising, dragging equally-gullible do-gooders down her rabbit-hole, she says herself: borne of the poor kid’s unquenchable ‘where’s the $ going to come from’ panic. ‘Rescue’ action starts early, increases manically: no time in there to gain any deep understanding of the patterns/ cycle of abuse in her own life = big blind spot for corrupt protectors/ providers: leaves her (& her charges & her org) vulnerable to further predation sexually & financially. A “#MeToo” story in the making, spawning plenty of other MeToo’s in her wake.
My life has intersected fairly often w/MSW’s, clinical psychologists & priests working in social services (including an early stint as foster mother to ED teens). The majority of those I met were inspired to help others by their own or close relatives’ difficulties. But their training was thorough, including lots of analysis/ therapy to ensure helping not harming, & ability to guide & monitor layman volunteers. Because– obviously!– social service is a magnet for predators, many of whom instinctively reach out to help others, but are semi-unconsciously caught up in the victim-victimizer pattern.
At one time, helping the poor abroad was run almost entirely by large charity or govtl orgs, because that’s what it took to raise the funds. No doubt these orgs have committed abuses, but at least they are visible enough that vetting (or outing) occurs at some point. As suggested by Lloyd L, this is a peek into what can flourish in the petrie-dish of libertarian-encouraged oligarchy/ kleptocracy: unmonitored, untrained “missionaries” diving into self-initiated projects, w/ zero local govtl oversight (if not active corruption). I’m guessing MoreThanMe is not an aberration. More likely canary in coal mine.
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I’m an ex-Peace Corps volunteer who taught in the Malaysian state of Sarawak in Borneo. I checked…there is an opening for health service workers in Liberia. Nothing in education. I wonder why the country doesn’t ask for certified teachers.
……
Community Health Outreach Specialist…Peace Corps
Before You Apply
Peace Corps Response positions are open to returned Volunteers or U.S. citizens with significant professional and technical experience.
Project Description
10 Response Volunteers are needed to serve as Community Health Outreach Specialists in Liberia for the Ministry of Health’s Country Health Teams. Peace Corps Liberia is launching a new health project, which will support the new National Community Health Services Plan and other health priorities as determined by the Ministry of Health. The Ebola outbreak of 2014-2015 in Liberia overwhelmed the health system and highlighted the unmet need for a network of health workers covering the most remote communities. Liberia is now in the process of restructuring and rebuilding its health sector with the strategic support of partners, with a national emphasis on reducing maternal and child mortality. A major effort within this reform is a national community health plan that will establish a new cadre of health extension workers explicitly tasked with providing a package of essential health services to the approximately 30% of the population living outside the reach of the current health system. The Peace Corps, which is widely known and respected in Liberia, is well-positioned to play a meaningful role in this effort. Through their human-centered, grassroots approach, Volunteers can provide support to the new cadres of Community Health service providers, building key capacities and linkages towards a shared goal of reducing maternal and child mortality.
The Community Health Outreach Specialists, with Bachelor’s degrees in health or development and with project management experience, will be placed with the health facilities in the same role that the future 2-year Volunteers will work in. They will help PC/Liberia to refine and test aspects of the new project and will provide feedback about work assignments, community needs, potential Volunteer projects, and challenges to the model of the new health project…
http://www.peacecorps.gov/volunteer/response-openings/community-health-outreach-specialist-5563br/
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“I wonder why [Liberia] doesn’t ask for certified teachers.”
Certified by whom? I’m guessing you mean, teachers from developed countries w/ave or better ed outcomes, certified by their state or nat’l govts.
But the Peace Corps employment ad you cite for health workers illustrates what needs to come first: “Liberia is now in the process of restructuring and rebuilding its health sector with the strategic support of partners, with a national emphasis on reducing maternal and child mortality.” I.e., there’s a govtl plan in place to expand & improve [health] service, w/specific goals, seeking a cadre w/ “significant professional and technical expertise”– defined as “Bachelor’s degrees in health or development and with project management experience” to run it — paving the way for “future 2-yr volunteers” by “helping [Liberian govt] to refine and test aspects of the new project and [providing] feedback about work assignments, community needs, potential Volunteer projects, and challenges to the model of the new health project.”
For an education project to make any headway, Liberian govt needs likewise to define an ed plan w/goals, & solicit intl partners w/heft & rep like Peace Corps to get it off the ground, i.e., establish framework in tandem w/govt, which will include defining scope of work & supervising 2-yr volunteers: that’s where your certified teachers come in.
Just bringing certified teachers into the current [apparently chaotic] Liberian ed set-up invites more willy-nilly experimentation à la MoreThanMe (or worse).
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That Liberian govt authorizes some kid w/GoFundMe $ & zeal but no CV to come in, set up a school for poorest sex’lly-exploited girls, then proceed w/vast expansion plans despite enabling further sexual exploitation of students by staff shows clearly: Liberian govt has no current plan in pace to improve nat’l ed.
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bethree5: “I’m guessing you mean, teachers from developed countries w/ave or better ed outcomes, certified by their state or nat’l govts.”
Peace Corps is an American institution funded by the US government. I mean teachers who are certified in the US could come to Liberia. The host country asks for volunteers to come in areas that they determine is needed.
Perhaps the Peace Corps could provide experts in education that could plow through the chaos in the Liberian system and set up some good schools??? Perhaps they couldn’t. It would depend upon the person. Some people are able to do amazing things.
Malaysia stopped asking for Peace Corps volunteers years ago because Malaysia was wanting highly skilled people and those people weren’t wanting to be paid peanuts as a volunteer. The program was stopped in Malaysia because the US couldn’t provide what the host country was asking for.
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I wonder if maybe the problem is that US no longer funds Peace Corps sufficiently to support project teams headed by experts who could establish a program framework to address the country’s goals, then hire & supervise lower-level volunteers [e.g., 2-yr or 4-yr college grads]. I knew 2-yr volunteers in ’60’s & ’70’s in various fields. They were not expected to invent the project on the ground, they reported to supervisors & had clear-cut direction.
Certified teachers are not necessarily “experts in education.” If they are simply responding to a call from Liberia to staff the existing school system, they are not being asked to create something from nothing [nor does their certification include training for that], & likely will be given no more support than locals.
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bethree5: I would imagine that the Peace Corps is NOT being funded very well. Trump and the GOP would not see this as anything important if they are considering taking away funding for overseas projects. [America First blah, blah, blah…] And that the GOP is now thinking about cutting social services since the wealthy needed their tax cuts.
……………………….
The Peace Corps enjoys bipartisan support in Congress. Senators and representatives from both parties have served as Volunteers.
The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and House Committee on Foreign Affairs are charged with general oversight of the activities and programs of the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps’ annual budget is determined each year by the congressional budget and appropriations process. Funding for the Peace Corps is included in the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations bill. Generally, the Peace Corps budget is about 1 percent of the foreign operations budget. The Peace Corps is continuously working to provide the highest quality support to Volunteers, particularly in the areas of health, safety, and security.
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Carol,
Thank you for your PC service in Malaysia. The positions you refer to in your post are for Peace Corps Response volunteers, not the standard 2+ year PC program. In Liberia the majority of the 125 current PCVs are secondary teachers, particular in math and science, and that has been the case for the past 10 years. [I did notice that there are no openings listed; I’m not sure why that is.] I was a Response volunteer in Liberia teaching methods courses to pre-service and in-service teachers at a university, and remedial math to adults. Other Response volunteers taught primary school teachers at rural teacher training institutes.
I started my PC year in 2013 a few weeks before More Than Me opened its school, continuing until volunteers were pulled out due to the Ebola outbreak. I knew of Katie Meyler before I arrived in Liberia and was immediately skeptical about a young, inexperienced American running a school. But I never heard anything negative about her while there. My placement was far from Monrovia and when I was in the capital we were strongly discouraged from venturing into West Point, where MTM is based, because it was the most dangerous area of the city. So I never visited the school, much as I wanted to.
This story hit me like a punch in the gut. People I am in touch with in Liberia are angry though not entirely surprised; this is a big story there. The silver lining will be if MTM loses its contract to open additional schools.
Sally
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Sally OrmeIn: “Liberia the majority of the 125 current PCVs are secondary teachers, particular in math and science, and that has been the case for the past 10 years.”
Thank you for your more up-to-date information. Do you know why there aren’t any Peace Corps Volunteers in elementary schools?
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After almost 20 years of virtually no schooling creating an extreme shortage of trained teachers, the Peace Corps and the Liberian government decided that a two-pronged approach to develop a teacher pipeline was needed. There was a particularly acute shortage of math and science teachers so placing volunteers in secondary schools was seen as a potentially effective way to develop future math/science teachers. Meanwhile, other volunteers trained primary teachers at rural teacher training institutes. Placing volunteers directly in the thousands of primary schools would have been extremely inefficient.
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sallyo57:”…other volunteers trained primary teachers at rural teacher training institutes.”
I knew that the Peace Corps could help. Glad to learn this is occurring. Hope that help continues.
It must have been quite an experience to work in Liberia. My stint as a PC Volunteer was in the dark ages of 1967-68. The Peace Corps was only a few years old at that point. I believe it is a fantastic way to increase the knowledge of Americans for other cultures and to show the world that we are not all greedy, uncaring people.
I went back in 2014 to visit one of the schools in which I had taught in Borneo. The man that drove me to this school had known me when he was 10 years old. In 1967, I had often visited his Land Dyak home. His father was a composer of Land Dyak music. He and I would play music that he had written. His father played the violin and I played the clarinet. We would sit on the floor of the bamboo house to play and we’d also sleep on the bamboo floor.
When I visited this school in which I had taught for one year, I was greeted like a long lost important person. Several administrators, who weren’t there when I was, came out and took my picture and let me know how much they appreciated me. I signed a guest book.
This is the way to make a difference in the world…one volunteer at at time.
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Sally O thanks for the insights into PC today & Carol for those wonderful reminiscences. I was always in awe of friends who did this (& VISTA), it made me proud to be an American. As a young teacher in a private hisch, I had a student who underwent soul-searching sr yr; he left his golf/ country-club friends behind & headed to Kenya w/PC. I found him 50 yrs later on social media: he has spent his life there doing this sort of work, now w/his sons too. And a dear friend (now dec.), a clin nurse, spent young adulthood in Congo running a small rural hospital. She considered their approach to healthcare enlightened: families would bring a contribution (e.g. sack of rice) along w/their ill member, & would rotate so that a relative was at bedside daily to assist professionals w/routine chores. She met her future husb there, a German mech engr. In those days [still?] Germany had a regular volunteer prog, alt to mil svs, for bldg/ constr services in Africa.
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Four days after the publication of this story by ProPublica, More Than Me CEO Katie Meyler has stepped down.
https://www.propublica.org/article/more-than-me-ceo-katie-meyler-temporarily-steps-down?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter
(In case you want to consider supporting ProPublica’s excellent work:
https://donate.propublica.org/give/141278/#!/donation/checkout)
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Unfortunately she is only stepping aside temporarily while an independent investigation is undertaken. Many Liberians are demanding she be permanently removed, as should she and the US board.
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Temporarily
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