PHOTO: Mr. David Yourfee and his three-year-old daughter, Yongor, pose in front of his business Center on Benson Street, Monrovia.
By Samuel G. Dweh, Freelance Development Journalist,samuelosophy@yahoo.com/samuelosophy1@gmail.com
While the problem of disability has consumed most people in that world, there are several others who challenged the constraints posed to the world of the disabled society, conquering their world and triumphing over their situations in every sphere of life.
This article features one of such persons endowed with the tenacity and innovation to conquer the apparent spree of begging most people with disabilities are reduced to and identified with.
Mr. David Yourfee, a physically challenged whose both legs are paralyzed, moves on his buttock to collect and market some items from his business center during business hours that run from 8am to 7pm daily. He calls for and struggles his way to convince customers standing by to transact with him. David uses a stick, with nails planted at the top, to collect an item on a shelf far above his head to get it to his reach for sale.
“Some of my relatives come here to assist me, but I love to do my work by myself,” David told this PwD Fellow during an interview at 10: 00Pm on Saturday, June 5, 2021 at his business center, “Little Is Much When God Is In It,” he said at his business center located on Benson Street in Monrovia. However, this place remains closed throughout the business hours whenever he gets no assistance in opening the center from any of his relatives comes to assist him on business day.
“My disability can’t allow me to tote any of the heavy goods my abled bodied relatives can lift,” he said. But on the day of the interview, this PwD fellow was able to contact him at his business for the interview, when his nephew, James Karbo, was fortunately available to assist him with the shop.
David usually opens his business center by 7:00am – 8:00am, but the day of the interview which fell on (the first Saturday of the Month, is set aside as a Government-mandated “Monrovia general cleanup day”, introduced by erstwhile Monrovia City Mayor, Mary T. Broh, during the Presidency of Mrs. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The day is meant to clear heaps of garbage that regularly littered most parts of the Nation’s capital city, Monrovia, from Monday to Friday.
The economic venture of David, who was born on March 30, 1986, is a General Merchandize. Some of the items on sale every day include children’s book bags, phones’ recharge cards of Liberia’s GSM companies—Lonestar and Orange. He also sells soft drinks, stationeries, sweets biscuits and candies and local cookies as well as local newspapers, and discs containing Liberian and foreign music and movies. These goods are crammed under a narrow shed of an outstretched roof of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Zion University, a higher institution of learning which David currently attends.
Most part of the goods outside take up half of the sidewalk meant for pedestrian. The stockpile of merchandise exemplifies the fast-growing size of the business. Some of the drinks (in plastic and glass bottles) are put into a white plastic cooler (containing ice cubes) sitting over a wooden table. The reserved ones are inside the Shop occupying about five yards in length and four yards in width with a white freezer usually set at the right side of the entrance. His two mobility aids—hand-propelled tricycles, one metal frame, the other wooden—are packed together under a wooden board containing the music and movie discs.
“I bought the one with metal frame; the one with the wooden frame is a gift from a friends,” he responded to question of how he got the tricycles. David responded to another question on how he got the space when he said, “I’m renting this space for thirty United States Dollars per month, for a twelve-month period.”
His situation of disability did not blind him to modern civilized practice. While the interview continued, he appealed for a 30-second break to attend to his breakfast tea in an ash-colored metal kettle over an electric stove on the floor inside the Shop. He served his guest, this writer, with a full cup and another cup to his three-year-old daughter, Yongar B. Yourfee.
Continuing with his explanation after serving the tea, David said, “For this business, I took loan from a women’s empowerment organization named Women Foundation, sponsored by the World Bank.”
But what was his start up? David started business as a cobbler – a shoe-shine boy on Camp Johnson Road, another Street that connects with Benson Street about twenty meters away from where his current business center is based. “I entered the business world through sewing and shining of shoes in year 2001, starting with two hundred Liberian Dollar which was less than thirty U.S. Dollars during that time. I used one hundred and fifty Dollars on purchase of different kinds of shoes’ polish and shoe-sewing materials, including sewing thread and sewing needles. I used the balance, fifty dollars, on purchase of wooden box for the seating of my customers’ legs when their shoes were being polished or washed,” David explained.
He said three years later, 2004, he added a stationery business selling office and school materials to the shoes shining and shoes sewing business. “I bought the stationery with my profits from the shoe sewing and shining business,” he said with a smile.
However, the disabled businessman still nurses a discouragement-inducing experience with members of the Monrovia City Police during the leadership of Madam Mary T. Broh as Mayor of the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC). “In 2015, the City Police of the Monrovia City Corporation seized all my goods and a wheelbarrow containing them, and took them away in an MCC Pickup. My money was between the stationery and the base of the wheelbarrow in the Pickup. I went to MCC’s Headquarters to free my goods. I explained to Mayor Mary Broh what had happened. She gave order for all the things seized from me to be given back immediately. But her boys who seized the goods released only the wheelbarrow, and less than twenty percent of the goods. I couldn’t get back the money with the goods they had taken away to the MCC’s Headquarters,” David recalled.
The interview with this role model in the Liberian disability community was punctuated by nine different complements to him by well-wishers, friends and others who came passing by hailing, extension of hand (for hands clasp) while the interview was being held.
“Please pardon me for the interruption,” David pleaded the interviewer after each ‘intruder’ had left. “Because of what I do, trading, majority of the people—friends and strangers—who pass here show their respect for me through various forms, like what you saw here during these few minutes you spent with me here. They don’t perceive me as a disabled person, even though I am, or stare at me in a way that reflects their feelings about my physical feature. I’ve conquered negative label, stereotype, in words or looks, by being educated and economically self-reliant,” he giggled.
But he was denied an opportunity to secure a loan to expand his business, which in essence is a violation of his right. As he explained his ‘bitter experience’ with Mercy Corps, an American International ‘empowerment’ organization, David applied for a loan to Mercy Corps’ Head Office in response to advertisement he had heard on the radio and read in a newspaper a month earlier. He wanted the loan to increase the size of business, he said. “I had stated in my application letter that I am owner of an existing business, and that I wanted to expand my business. But I wasn’t allowed to see the loan director when I was on a follow-up visit at Mercy Corps’ Head office,” he explained furthers.
Besides, he was also denied opportunity to gainful employment by the same Mercy Corps. He explained his ‘bitter experience’ with Mercy Corps, an American International ‘empowerment’ organization, in May of 2021.
“After several fruitless efforts of securing loan, I wrote another application for a job. But I wasn’t allowed to see the Mercy Corps employment head—similar to the same experience I had with the loan matter,” he added. David’s experience on the external employment sector revealed violation of his Right of “employment” under Article 27 of the UNCRPD, which is on “Employment and Work”.
ACADEMIC JOURNEY
But David’s business innovation and initiative have equally been driven by his zest for education. In 2009, David took the entrance exams of the University of Liberia (UL), a State-owned institution but he did not make it, although he doubted that he failed the entrance as shown by the result. “I felt deep in my heart that I passed the Entrance exams, and I vowed to challenge the University’s Authority on the results for me,” David disclosed.
However, he didn’t pursue his desire to challenge the UL entrance result. Instead, he sat for the entrance of a different University: African Methodist Episcopal AME University (AMEU) on Camp Johnson Road, where his first business spot is located; “But the University’s authority cancelled the entire result on ground of alleged corruption by some of the Lecturers and supervisors connected to the entrance exam,” which of course was David’s second setback at his quest for advanced education.
Questioned further on his third alternative of a higher institution of learning after successive setbacks in the first two attempts, David responded with gladness that later, in the same year, 2009, he took a third entrance exam, the second instance at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) University and made it this time with an enrollment at the institution. “At AME Zion University, I am studying Accounting for Major, and Management for my Minor. I’m expected to graduate next year, 2022, by God’s power,” Mr. David Yourfee continued his in-school story which this writer confirmed from two of the student’s teachers—one for Accounting, and the other for Management.
“David was part of my Accounting Class of 201 and 202. He always performed well in each of my class works or assignment. To grade his performances on the average, I can give him eighty percent,” Mr. Guntor Ylatun, who taught him accounting at AME Zion University, on June 4, 2021, responded to this writer’s inquiry intended to confirm his story about his disabled student’s academic performance under him.
David Yourfee’s teacher in his Management class, Mr. Mark S.D. Giddings, Jr., who is also an Assistant Commissioner at the Liberia National Police (LNP), and the LNP’s Chief of Procurement, further confirmed on June 7, 2021, “I made David Yourfee the president of my Management class, because of his outstanding academic performance. This is coupled with his punctuality during teaching session, in spite of his physical condition that always poses extreme difficulty for him on be climbing the school’s staircase to access the classroom on the top floor.
Another part of David Yourfee’s punctuality was his notification of me, via phone call, a day or hours before lecture time, about his planned absence during teaching session. Many of his classmates, with no disability, often failed in this communication aspect of teacher-student relationship.”
However, the educational life of David Yourfee at AME Zion University isn’t stress-free, considering his physical deformity. “There’s no level path on the building’s staircase for me, a physically challenged student, to access my classroom. I often fee pains in all parts of my body to get me to my classrooms above the ground floor because the AME University’s building isn’t disability-friendly,” David revealed.
He had experienced similar problems, David said along with many others, in the Po River’s branch (situated between Montserrado County and Bomi County) of AME-Z University; and the experiences forced him to officially request a switch to the Monrovia Branch located on Benson Street, where his business is located.
David narrated further during the interview: “My mobility constraints at Monrovia’s branch of AME-Z U were similar to the ones I experienced when I was in the Po River’s branch, in Bomi County. These conditions compelled me to change lecture venue. The change forced twenty United States Dollars from my business for processing of official communications by the University’s authority to officially inform both branches of my switch.”
Concerning his Po River’s campus experience, David said some of my classmates or schoolmates sometime carried him from the base of the staircase all the way to the lecture hall at the top floor. Do you “Imagine a full-grown man like me, being toted like a baby,” David recalled, and added: “Getting on the university’s bus to and from campus was another painful challenge for me, especially during rainy season when the school’s bus stopped over water, I would sit, thinking how I would go to class, until God sends somebody to tote me to the main campus gate,” he lamented his plight on the educational front.
The “accessibility” issue with David Yourfee in a “public place”, building of the AME Zion University, is a “violation” of his Right of “access” under Article nine (9) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), which Liberia is a signatory to (July 26, 2012). It becomes a violation where the school subjected him to climbing stairs in a physical condition where his two legs are paralyzed. At least the government should ensure that every institution of learning provides the opportunity for a learning environment for such physically challenged persons.
During his early grade-level education, David said: “I started school with 1st Grade on Guinea’s refugee camp, named Kwemeh. The place is a border area with Liberia. Liberia’s civil war drove me there.” He also attended the Junior High section of Bassa Community High School in Monrovia.”
DAVID’S DISABILITY: HOW IT STARTED
On his disability, David said his problem started when he was age 12. “It started in a village named Kpayea, in Lofa County, my ancestral home, when I was living with my both parents—Mehan Yourfee and Youngar Banneh Yourfee. My mother told me it was caused by witchcraft from my maternal uncle,” David, now age 35, revealed. “He was popular in the Town as a big wizard,” he said of his uncle.
Recounting his mother’s story, his uncle, living in another part of the village, strangely requested an empty bottle from his mother. “My mother refused to give the bottle to him, because a neighbor told her my uncle will use the bottle in the witch world against her or against one of her relatives. But my aunt persuaded my mother to release the bottle to my uncle. She said to my mother, ‘cat can’t eat its own baby’. My mother succumbed to my aunt’s verbal pressure. Two weeks later I couldn’t walk, my both legs were weak and I could feel no life in any of them,” he narrated.
Little David’s parents couldn’t discover the cause of his ‘strange paralysis’ and couldn’t find anybody, in the whole Town, with knowledge of cure of the strange sickness. As a final resort, mom and dad rushed him to the Nation’s Capital, Monrovia. Days later, they admitted him at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center, Liberia’s premier referral health facility, for cure.
“I remember doctors at JFK Medical Center pricking syringe needles into my flesh through my side here,” David, now an adult said during the interview on June 5, 2021, as he raised his shirt, to display his waist for the interviewer to see the ‘most affected spot’. “But JFK Hospital couldn’t cure my sickness, and my condition continue getting worse days later. I’m now completely disabled,” he narrated further.
David Yourfee said two of his painful experiences of his disability are abandonment by his father, and the mother of his daughter. “My father, a Pastor of a popular Church, abandoned me when I was still a kid because of my disability. My mother said he ran from home, after he complained several times about my being forever damaged physically. The mother of my only child, with me here, also abandoned me due to my disability,” he said, as his facial expression remained as stabled as if the experience of double dejection didn’t have emotional impact on his person.
On other people’s perception or reaction to his disability, David said: “All my family members treat me with respect, except my biological father, but not with everybody outside of my family. Some of the non-family members sometime sing song about my disability,” he explained.
CURRENT CHALLENGES
The physically challenged businessman and final-year university student mentioned three challenges with him, in spite of his educational and economic successes. “Difficulty of getting rent for current business center, raising money for a permanent place for my business, and getting school fees to keep my daughter in the private school she currently attends are my present challenges,” he enumerated his constraints in response to this Reporter’s question.
Three year-old Youngar B. Yourfee stayed by his father’s in the photo for this story. “She’s my future investment, a Kindergarten-3 student of the LOSH Christian Academy located on Camp Johnson Road,” Daddy David Yourfee said about his only child to the man her. Publication of this article was made possible with support from Internews Liberia Inclusive Media Project.