From War Orphan to Principal: Prince’s Story
Deep in the bush of Bong County, Liberia, in a village called Balama, 15 students in pressed white shirts and blue slacks and skirts rapidly take notes inside of a one-room schoolhouse. One boy turns to look out the window for a moment as he taps his foot, but his hand never stops writing on his composition notepad, even when our team arrives with a video camera to film the scene.
All attention is riveted on the teacher, a young man rapidly writing math equations on the room’s one chalkboard.
His name is Prince Dweh, and he is the principal of this school.
After class is dismissed, Prince joins us, sitting across from us at a wooden desk in the classroom where mathematics first came alive to him for the first time, and he tells us his story.
Prince Dweh was born in Sinoe County in Monrovia, Liberia, the third largest of Liberia’s counties. When he was eight years old, his parents passed away, leaving him in the care of his aunt, who brought him to the Children’s Ministry Orphanage, in hopes that he could have a chance at a better life and the care he needed.
“Life wasn’t easy, being an orphan,” Prince recalls that time in his life with a grimace. “We had nothing to eat, no access to education, and no clothes to wear. The conditions stacked against us were so great and so powerful that it was difficult to survive.”
Prince was 17 years old when Daryl Roberts first visited his orphanage in Liberia and was shocked by the need he saw there. This chance encounter became the start of Orphan Aid Liberia, now LIVE2540, and Prince Dweh was one of the first students that the organization funded to go to high school.
Prince hurried to catch up on his studies in high school and, after graduation, attended a university to study chemistry and mathematics.
While Prince was studying, LIVE2540 was working to expand the Children’s Ministry into a functioning school, with dormitories for both boys and girls and several classrooms housing kindergarten through 8th grade.
“After my college graduation, I was called by LIVE2540 to come give back what I acquired out there to the orphans here,” Prince remembers the phone call that became a full-circle moment for him-an invitation to return to the orphanage where he grew up. “In 2018, I was appointed as principal of the school at Children’s Ministry.”
For a moment, he looks out at the schoolyard, where his pupils are playing after a day of studying.
“I am really sacrificing my life, helping my sister and brothers here that are orphans, telling them the importance of putting themselves together,” He says. “You have to see the challenges and actually see that you can make it through the challenges. Life is difficult but you have to fight the difficulties.”
The school that Prince guides with care is made possible by LIVE2540’s supporters, who believe wholeheartedly that education is the key to unlock a better future for the most vulnerable. This support has ensured that over 300 children receive scholarships to attend preschool through 12th grade, and 20 students are funded to study nursing, agriculture, theology and education at Liberian universities.
Step inside Prince’s classroom and hear his story first hand: