Archive Liberia in collaboration with Black Femme Supremacy Film Fest will on Sunday February 19, 2023, host a virtual festival centered around the theme of land sovereignty in Liberia as seen in the film ‘The Land Beneath Our Feet’
The event will be a 4-hour virtual event (11:00 AM – 3:00PM) and will include the screening of The Land Beneath Our Feet (for an hour), performance from Liberian legendary singer, Princess Hawa Daisy Moore, a panel conversation between the film’s hero Dr. Emmanuel K. Urey Yarkpawolo and land researcher Ali Kaba & a special mix made by SHABAZZ.
Archive Liberia is an invitation and site for recovering, holding and organizing the collective memory of Liberia.
The Land Beneath Our Feet follows a young Liberian man, uprooted by war, who returns from the USA with footage of Liberia’s past. The uncovered footage is embraced as a national paragon. Depicting a 1926 corporate land grab, it is also an explosive reminder of eroding land rights.
In post-conflict Liberia, individuals and communities are pitted against multinational corporations, the government, and each other in life-threatening disputes over land.
What can this ghostly footage offer a nation, as it debates radical land reforms that could empower communities to shape a more diverse, stable, and sustainable future?
Link to register and join the show: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/archive-liberia-fest-tickets-464429580377?fbclid=IwAR3nCtyoG53RrndbWfOR2uEKIormTigll7tFRCzvCe6WZfwKObcX7tiqUbY
Land Rights Hero , Dr. Emmanuel King Urey Yarkpawolo
Dr. Emmanuel King Urey Yarkpawolo grew up in a little-known village, Gomue, during wartime that made it difficult for him to secure an education.
From a young age, he dreamed of attending school, but he didn’t have the opportunity until the war forced his family into neighboring Guinea, where he was able to begin elementary school at the age of nearly 14.
With these challenges, the land right hero went on to attend college, earning two Master’s degrees and graduated with his PhD in Environmental Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Nelson Institute 2018.
Since his returned to Liberia, he has been working to increase educational opportunities and land rights through his work with Landesa, the Salvation Army Polytechnic (T-SAP) school and his own nonprofit, One Life Liberia.
In the early 1800s, the American Colonization Society began a movement to send freed slaves to live in what eventually became known as Liberia. The strangers brought a system of freehold landownership that was foreign to the indigenous systems of land ownership. This resulted in a culture clash that has had a lasting impact on internal Liberian relations.
Today, Liberia is a more peaceful place, but a number of challenges remain, including those related to land rights, resource management and education.
Dr. Yarkpawolo since 2014 begun the process of helping Liberia especially rural Liberians to own rights to land.
And his dream came through when the 54th National Legislature pass the bill and was later signed in to law in 2018 by Liberian leader George Weah .
Link to register and join the conversation: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/archive-liberia-fest-tickets-464429580377?fbclid=IwAR3nCtyoG53RrndbWfOR2uEKIormTigll7tFRCzvCe6WZfwKObcX7tiqUbY
