Langhorne, Pennsylvania, USA – Liberia’s First Lady, Kartumu Yarta Boakai has outlined the urgency for the establishment and launch of a National Mental Health Plan that is responsive and inclusive, while rallying partners at the TUFH 2025 Global Health Cultural Dinner held in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, September 12, 2025 to support and curb Liberia’s maternity and neonatal health crisis.
In her special remarks, Madam Boakai reminded the audience that women in Liberia risk their lives every day to give birth, with many giving birth on hospital floors and others never reaching a facility. Although the infant death statistics in Liberia are concerning, she claimed that they are improving with the assistance of their partners.
“From Bomi to Pipeline to Duport Road hospitals, women can be seen, mothers are being honored, and babies are being welcomed with care not chaos as they have seen and witnessed in the picture,” she revealed.
Madam Boakai described the components of mental health and argued for the immediate development of the National Mental Health Plan. Because it is too often faced with stigma, shame, or silence, she claimed that mental health is still taboo in many African nations, including Liberia, and that the grief that is repressed simply gets worse rather than go away.
“Now, allow me to take you through the very real and pressing issues we are facing, issues that highlight the severity of the situation as well as the optimism we possess: Lberia is in dire need of qualified personnel, well-equipped facilities, and an inclusive and proactive National Mental Health Plan.”
For this reason, she added, “I call on partners like the Mollie Woods Hare Global Center of Excellence, whose work to train physicians, conduct research, set clinical standards, and promote policy for neurodivergence is both necessary and commendable.”
In light of this, she said, people in Liberia are recovering from the trauma of war as well as the reverberating disparities of systems that have been ignored for too long. The First Lady emphasized that these distinctions are no longer merely theoretical; rather, they are reflected in the suffering of mental illness, the rising prevalence of teen addiction, and the maternity wards in Liberia.
“Our women continue to give birth bravely despite the fact that many of our health institutions lack even the most basic amenities, such as water, electricity, and qualified personnel. I have examined adolescent mother’s eyes. I have consoled parents who lost kids to diseases that may have been avoided. I have even held the hands of young people who are struggling with substance abuse and don’t have access to mental health services. How can we sit comfortably in our positions and pretend we don’t hear these cries? I asked myself. I was unable to. I therefore awoke not with riches, but with conviction, faith, and a strong sense of obligation.”
The First Lady and representative of Liberia participated the TUFH 2025 Global Health Cultural Dinner in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, United States of America, along with the Senior Executives of Woods System of Care and TUFH, as well as other health and international development partners.
Among those in attendance were Woods System of Care executives and board members, global changemakers, dignitaries, and Madam Tine Hansen-Turton, CEO of Woods System of Care; Madam Dawn Diamond, CEO of Woods Services; and Mr. Nicholas Torres, CEO of the Network Towards Unity For Health, or TUFH for short.
The TUFH 2025 Global Health Conference is a special event with the goal of revolutionizing healthcare by compassion, inclusion, and innovation. However, the objective of the dinner was to bring people together, driven by a common obligation to change perceptions and question presumptions about global health equity.
