Brick by Brick: The Business of Rebuilding Liberia
Continuing Our Progress
We are proud of our work in Liberia and are excited to highlight some major milestones we recently have reached.
Firestone Liberia continues to support the rebuilding of Liberia's rubber industry, which is vital to the country's future. Firestone Liberia's tree seedling distribution program has seen great success, giving away more than 1 million free rubber tree seedlings to small, private Liberian rubber farms since January 2008. In addition, the company has bought more than $59 million worth of rubber from Liberian rubber farmers in the same time period. These two programs greatly help local independent farmers trying to rebuild their farms after 14 years of civil war.
Firestone Liberia continues to invest in social infrastructure that benefits its more than 6,500 employees and their families. The Firestone Liberia School System is experiencing great success, as Firestone High School prepares to graduate its first senior class. More than 16,000 students are enrolled in our school system, up from 8,279 only six years ago. In addition, the company has completed more than 1,500 housing units for employees since 2004, and 197 additional units are in various stages of progress.
In total, Firestone Liberia has now invested some $76.8 million in Liberia since the country's long civil war ended in 2004.
We are pleased to provide these new statistics to illustrate our ongoing commitment to postwar progress in Liberia.
Posted by: Dan Adomitis
September 1, 2009
