Mayor Ras J. Baraka of Newark, New Jersey, who visited Liberia and met with key policymakers together with Vice President Jeremiah Koung, Police Inspector Common Gregory Coleman and Monrovia Metropolis Mayor John Charuk Siafa, threw again the longstanding historic ties between the US and Liberia, most particularly the cities of Newark in New Jersey and Monrovia.
By Emmanuel Weedee-Conway
Addressing the joint Liberia Nationwide Police (LNP) and Monrovia Metropolis Company ceremony held at Monrovia Metropolis Corridor, expressed the vital need of a renewed and significant partnership constructed on shared historical past, mutual respect, and collective progress.
Mayor Baraka, who obtained a heat reception on the MCC with the important thing to town symbolically turned over to him, recounted the deep cultural and human connections between Liberia and town of Newark, which serves as house to one of many largest Liberian populations in america.
The Newark Metropolis Mayor additionally paid a courtesy go to on Vice President Koung and a bilateral engagement on the Liberia Nationwide Police Headquarters, the place he held discussions centered on constructing capability, sharing greatest practices, and strengthening institutional collaboration.
The go to was climaxed on the Cape Lodge, the place a proper reception was held in his honor.
Talking throughout the reception, Mayor Baraka once more re-enforced the necessity for the connection between Newark and Monrovia to transcend formality and evolve into actionable partnership.
He emphasised that each cities share the challenges of city governance, from youth unemployment and public security to neighborhood engagement and local weather change and as such, they need to share methods, instruments, and alternatives to beat these challenges.
“This sister-city partnership can not simply be symbolic; it has to alter lives. We should construct methods that give younger individuals hope, strengthen public establishments, and create alternatives that make communities safer, stronger, and extra affluent,” mentioned Mayor Baraka.
He identified Newark’s profitable public security reforms, which shifted policing towards neighborhood belief, prevention applications, college partnerships, well being interventions, and youth empowerment alternatives.
He famous that such approaches not solely diminished crime but additionally restored dignity and strengthened civic unity.
He pledged Newark’s help to Monrovia in areas together with: Public Security Coaching and Tools, Youth Improvement and Workforce Exchanges, College Partnerships and Digital Studying, Local weather Resilience and Environmental Management and Transportation Assist resembling college buses and logistics gear.
Mayor Baraka additionally spoke passionately about Newark’s thriving Liberian diaspora, describing them as a bridge already connecting the 2 cities.
“Households, tradition, religion, historical past—these bind us. Now we should add schooling, know-how, financial trade, and shared management. That is how we honor the deep roots our communities already share.”
Monrovia Metropolis Mayor Siafa in remarks, expressed pleasure for the institution of a sisterly relationship with Newark.
Police Inspector Gregory Coleman, whereas talking on the Metropolis Corridor, revealed that efforts are being made to make the LNP a people-centered police – standing out for the safety of lives and properties.
He named key precedence areas of the LNP as strengthening of public belief by way of neighborhood policing, professionalizing the pressure with fashionable coaching and moral requirements, confronting Liberia’s drug disaster, and combating transnational crime.
The police boss additionally acknowledged local weather change as a rising safety menace, praising Mayor Baraka’s management in environmental justice as a mannequin for integrating local weather consciousness into safety planning.
Owing the worldwide complexities of starting from terrorism and extremism amongst others, IG Coleman confused the necessity for collaboration; therefore, he foresees the partnership between Newark and Monrovia, and by massive US and Liberia to be a one that may repay for each peoples.
IG Coleman on the identical time reminded the viewers on the reception of Edward Wilmot Blyden’s imaginative and prescient of “The regeneration of Africa begins when its establishments uncover their objective and its individuals take possession of their future.”
He affirmed that this regeneration is alive inside the Liberia Nationwide Police and spoke of Newark’s instance, how neighborhood engagement, youth empowerment, justice reform, and cultural transformation can scale back violence and rebuild belief.
