For Liberians, education biggest goal of all

By Tevah Platt

December 16, 2009, 4:56PM

                     Advance photo/Bill Lyons

Eddie Kingston at the launch of Peace Afrique at the Century Dance Complex in Stapleton.

Peace Afrique is Kingston’s non-profit effort that aims to connect African high-school students to scholarship opportunities in the United States.STAPLETON -- He has devoted his life to playing soccer, but for Eddie Kingston it’s more than a sport: It’s a link to his native Liberia, the war-torn country he fled as a teen-ager.

Kingston left Liberia, he said, carrying a sense of guilt that he wasn’t among the friends he left behind. A brutal civil war in his native country killed an estimated 200,000 before it ended in 2003, and devastated the infrastructure of the country, which still is struggling to rebuild.

Through soccer, the game he learned in Liberia and in the Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana, Kingston is now organizing an effort to help children in Africa get to colleges and universities in the United States.

With ceremonies held at the Century Dance Complex in Stapleton, Kingston joined co-founders Jose Julu and Amber Wotton last week in officially launching Peace Afrique, a non-profit effort that aims to connect African high-school students to scholarship opportunities in the United States.


Advance photo/Bill Lyons

Dancers Avenette Geahwie, of Stapleton; Faith Richards, of Stapleton; Constance Downey, of the Bronx, and Tuss Roberts of Clifton, perform.


The founders of Peace Afrique plan to tour Liberia next year, recruiting teen-aged boys to play in a tournament in Monrovia. Kingston will create player portfolios for his best student athletes, he said, and will shop them around to American scouts. In subsequent years, the program will run in other regions of Africa, serving one country per year.

“I walked away from my work and everything to do this,” said Kingston, a resident of Stapleton who played soccer for Liberia’s national team, Jamaica’s Village United Soccer Club, and for Liberia’s World Cup qualifying campaign in 2002. “This is my way of giving back.”

The goal is to win scholarships for 10 Liberian students in 2010, and to encourage kids throughout Liberia to go to school. Liberia has an estimated school life expectancy of 9.5 years (compared to 15.2 years in the U.S.) and an unemployment rate of about 85 percent.

“I hope and I pray that this works,” said Rufus Arkoi, who heads up Roza Promotions, Staten Island’s Liberian soccer team. “It makes me very happy to see this because it is so needed in our country.”

The launch of Peace Afrique last week included fund-raising raffles and auctions, songs from local performers Samantha Grant and Milton Henry, and African drumming and dance performances by the Island Coupe Boys and the CDC Kids N Teens.

To donate to the effort or learn more, visit www.peaceafrique.org.

Tevah Platt covers the North and East shores of Staten Island for the Advance. She can be reached at platt@siadvance.com