THERE are 11 family members living in the pink-and-green-painted home in the well kept Sugar Hill community.

Quiet but confident and well-spoken, Jefferlyn is one of three children under the age of 18. Soon to be a ninth-grader, her favourite subjects are English and science and she has ambitions to be a brain surgeon.

She must first obtain her BSc before going abroad to continue her studies.

On a normal day, Jefferlyn wakes up at 6am to begin her household chores. She cleans the house and – when it’s available – cooks food.

Jefferlyn draws water from the well and sweeps the yard. Later in the day, she plays volleyball with the other boys and girls in her community.

She must get up in the middle of the night, at 2am, to study when there’s no noise and when she can learn independently.

Jefferlyn’s father Jeff works for the Liberia Immigration Service. Her mother Martha is the head nurse in the emergency room at Phebe Hospital, the main referral hospital in Bong County.

In June, Martha developed a headache, cold and diarrhoea shortly after four patients in the emergency room tested positive for coronavirus.

Five of the 16 staff, including Martha, subsequently tested positive and they were placed in isolation at the hospital for more than a month.

Days later, Jeff developed a cough and, on testing positive, he too was taken to the hospital for a month in isolation.

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Meanwhile, the family home was quarantined and all members were tested daily for two weeks.

Fortunately no-one else fell ill, but the family was stigmatised by other community members, who would not accept money from the children to buy food for them to eat.

Martha believes this was in part due to the recent memory of the 2014-15 Ebola outbreak, which killed more than 4800 people in Liberia. Even in less difficult times, affording the children’s lunch money can be problematic.

Jeff and Martha give Jefferlyn 200 LRD (£1) for her and her sister to go to school on a motorbike taxi so they are not late, but they have to walk the 6km home.

If there’s not enough money to go round then they walk both ways. Jeff described the arrival of Mary’s Meals at Jefferlyn’s school in September 2019 as “a real blessing for us”.

Jefferlyn said: “When my parents developed Covid-19 I was so worried. People stayed away from us, even our friends.

“We tried to buy food but people wouldn’t take our money, so we used to go way on to the road to buy.”

“The hardest thing about school closing was missing out on the food, at a time when my parents weren’t getting paid.

“I want to become a brain surgeon because there aren’t many brain surgeons in the world and especially not in Liberia.”

Mary’s Meals “gives us strength to listen to the lessons. If they weren’t there I’d just have to bear it, but I wouldn’t feel fine”.

Martha also recalled how hard it had been. She said: “During the three-month lockdown we were not moving freely and our pay is not enough to feed a family of 11 every day.”

“During the crisis, we were blessed through Mary’s Meals because although they did not cook it for them, the rice was divided with the beans and they brought it home.

“So on the day we didn’t have food we could cook it then.

“It’s good for the children to be full and focus on their lessons.

“But when they’re hungry, they won’t pay attention to the teacher.”

“The whole family was afraid [when the parents were in isolation]. We used to sing gospel songs on the phone to give us hope.”

“Mary’s Meals relieves us from a lot of problems.”