Bill Massaquoi - and the birth of Rebuild Africa (cont3.)

...type of banking – one set up in the streets and slums of Liberia – was pulling him away. Just ten months after starting with the Liberia Bank for Development and Investment, Bill resigned to create Liberia’s first and largest microfinance organization - the Local Enterprise Assistance Program (LEAP). He served as CEO of this organization for the next 8 years, raising more than $500,000 and serving more than 15,000 women with small short-term loans.

LEAP distributed its first loans in 1995 and grew throughout the next year. Unfortunately the war returned to Monrovia in 1996 – (it had been confined for several years to the country’s interior) – and its re-entrance into Monrovia was so thorough that observers described it as a complete “melt-down”of law and order. Like all other NGOs in Monrovia, LEAP’s office was ransacked, and some of its clients and staff were killed, while others were forced to flee. Continued insecurity prevented LEAP from restarting its operations until 1997. However, during its dormant year, many clients fully repaid their loans, even repaying those of fellow members who had departed, by going to the homes of LEAP staff. By the end of 1998 and despite the war, LEAP had stretched its limited funds enough to recover to a level of serving more than 2,000 clients and their families. Twenty Liberian staff served these clients through two branches working in three “counties”, and 100 community banks were now operating, linked to approximately 40 churches.

Bill continued to direct LEAP until 2002, when he left to work for World Relief in neighboring Sierra Leone, which had also been devastated by the war. There he managed a construction project which built 1,200 houses and three schools. Bill participated in rebuilding whole Sierra Leonean communities that had been destroyed. Housing and community development were very difficult in a place such as Kailahun district, where resources were now so scarce. Nevertheless families were eager for stability and healing, and communities were desirous to rebuild, so a flurry of enthusiasm developed around new home building. Bill and other project leaders energized and motivated these desperately poor survivors to do most of the work themselves, using local materials – mud and straw – and unskilled labor.

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