The Strongheart Fellowship Program

Strongheart House

MISSION

What if you could identify the brightest, most resilient young people displaced or orphaned by conflict, who have survived - and thrived - despite enormous odds?

What if you could bring them together in a sheltering space and help them heal, learn, and excel through exposure to maverick thinkers and mentors in areas as diverse as entrepreneurship, spirituality, technology, design, psychology - all focused on finding ways to dramatically improve the human condition through creativity, compassion, and innovation?

What if you could give them the tools, sanctuary, and encouragement to unfold and develop from their own unique blueprint into deeply authentic, connected human beings - with humility, openness, and an understanding of their place in the world as a part of the whole?

What if they used the power of their individual and collective strength to change their worlds - and through that, they changed the world for us all?

The Strongheart Fellowship Program is a groundbreaking healing and learning guidance program designed to help bright, resilient young people from extremely challenging circumstances around the globe develop into compassionate, innovative problem-solvers and leaders that can affect significant social change.

Strongheart House - to be opened in 2010 - is a home and center of healing, learning, and excellence for gifted and talented young people from the developing world either displaced or orphaned by war or other circumstance.

Strongheart House is located in the beautiful country of Liberia on the west coast of Africa

Strongheart House is a crucial element of transforming Strongheart principles into tangible results, creating a microcosm of a "world that works."

The first seven Strongheart House residents have been identified. They are all exceptional young Liberians who have been living as refugees in neighboring countries. The first Strongheart Fellow, Lovetta Conto, is among them - along with the Freeman family - a family of six orphaned refugees currently living in Ghana.

The Freeman Family

The story of the Freeman family is remarkable in that they have stayed together as a family against incredible odds after the death of their mother - and have worked together in a business that they started after her death and run within the refugee camp. Their tenacity, resourcefulness, and intelligence is amazing. Plans are underway to repatriate them to Liberia in preparation of the opening of Strongheart House.

Kizzy & Etienne N’golo, House Parents

Kizzy and Etienne have over 15 years of experience working with young people all over the world, including the U.S., Nigeria, Brazil, Belize, and Jamaica.

Their experience includes conducting programs for youth that involve group therapy, self-healing, peace talks, dance, music, nutrition and disease prevention cooking, space beautification, art, filmmaking, and community service.

Kizzy's background includes a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Whitman College. She is the creator of the United We Grow global mural movement which has been painting murals with children around the world for the last three years.

Etienne has a background in film and African cultural dance and musicality, as well Capoeira Angola. Additionally he has experience as an entreprenuer, having founded an independent bookstore in an underserved, impoverished but culturally diverse neighborhood.

Together they were most recently the Co-Directors of the Amala Foundation Youth Programs, where they worked on the Global Youth Peace Summit, a short term residence program for immigrant and refugee youth from West Africa, Iraq, and Mexico; as well the International Children's Peace Exchange Program, a summer residency program in the US for young people from Columbia and Nigeria.

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