photocredit: blackenterprise.com"The meaning of life is to Find your Gift. The purpose of life is to Give it Away." - Pablo Picasso.
Until one finds ones purpose on earth, one will always feel empty even when all seems to be going well. Sara Jones, who is she?
Sara Kaba Jones, is a clean water advocate and social entrepreneur from Liberia, born on June 21, 1982 in Monrovia, Liberia, she is a Liberian/American, founder and chief executive director of FACE Africa and also a Goodwill Ambassador for River Cess County. Her father, Dr. Brahima D. Kaba is a career diplomat and public servant and her mother, a business woman.
Sara is a firm believer in the private sector as the best possible option for sustainable social and economic change. This is why she made it to our top lists of Africa Women that are inspiring, we should not work only to make a living but to also be a blessing to others.
Growing up for Sara means spending her formative years moving from one country to another as a result of the Liberian's civil war and her father's diplomatic postings, at age 8, Sara left Liberia to Cote d'Ivoire her maternal home as a result of the civil war, after 2 years, she moved to Egypt following her father's diplomatic posting as an Ambassador, from there to France and Cyprus before moving to the United States in 1999 to attend college.
In 2009, after working for the Singaporean government economic development for 5 years, she resigned and launched a non-profit organization called FACE Africa which focusses on providing access to a clean water in River Cess County, a rural community in Liberia, a community believed to be one of the most marginalized regions in Liberia, under-reserved in water and sanitation and least likely to be served through the efforts of government and other agencies.
The first project carried out by FACE Africa was in late 2009 in Barnesville, Greater Monrovia, when the organization won a $10,000 grant from the Davis Project for Peace, with the money, they installed a water purification system, known by its trade name as the Skyhydrant, a purification system that is capable of producing up to 20,000 litres of drinking water per day and approximately 300 people benefited from it.
Since its inception, FACE Africa has done about 20 projects and has raised over $250,000 for clean water projects in Liberia and more than 10,000 residents have benefited from these projects.
In January 2013, Face Africa launched an ambitious new initiative known as County-by-County or CbC which intends to build 250 water points over 3 to 5 year period, to address the county's challenge in meeting the Millennium Development Goal for water by 2017. The project once completed, will benefit over 60,000 residents, and will ensure that River Cess meets the Liberian Government's 250 persons per safe waterpoint standard. She recently co-founded Empire Group, a Monrovia based company to create businesses in the areas of small-scale manufacturing, agriculture, and hospitality.
Honours and Awards
In 2012, in recognition of her commitment to clean water initiatives in Liberia, Sara was appointed International Goodwill Ambassador for the county of River Cess, Liberia. In 2013, Sara was listed by the Guardian UK as one of Africa's 25 Top Women Achievers alongside President Joyce Banda of Malawi and Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee. Same year, she was also named a 2013 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader along with 198 young leaders from 70 countries, to mention but these because she has been honoured with other prestigious awards for her work in clean water in county River Cess and has been profiled in giant media like CNN Inside Africa, BBC Focus on Africa Magazine, Boston Globe, Harper's Bazaar Arabia, ARISE Magazine.
She is truly an inspiring woman.
LESSON: You can never go wrong giving. The true essence of life is in helping other people meet their needs. Give not because you have so much but because you understand what is like not to have at all
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