Vision
To create a sustainable educational environment that empowers children in Liberia with knowledge, character, and opportunity to thrive and lead change in their communities.
Mission
Building holistic learning environments that combine academic excellence, moral development, and community support through accessible education and safe, nurturing facilities for every Liberian child.
A New PACT Partner in Liberia
2025 marked a significant transition in the partnership between Partnership for Community Transformation (PACT) and Liberia.
After 8 years of working with Center for Changing Lives - Liberia, PACT welcomed a new partner - Empowers Liberia.
Empowers Liberia was founded in 2025 by longtime PACT Board Member and CCLL supporter, Elijah Zina with the explicit intention to continue the wonderful work CCLL started nine years ago in Bong County, Liberia.
This video tells you a little about Elijah’s background:
Key Program Updates - Fall 2025
- Staff and students of Center for Changing Lives – Liberia are retained and receive excellent support.
- Scope expands beyond the original area of Bong County to include former CCLL students who have moved out of the area due to life circumstances.
- Post Secondary offerings expand to include University, College and Technical Schools.
Empowers Liberia and PACT currently support:
- 77 students in grade school
- 7 students attending college or university
- 2 students attending post-secondary technical school
PACT Board members Arthur Murray and Nicky Taylor with Empowers Liberia founder and CEO, Elijah Zina along with Empowers Liberia Bong County staff (formerly CCLL staff) Rachel, Annie and Hellen. April 2025
Empowering Liberia Programs
Tuition support for Ebola and AIDS orphans.
Counseling and material support for EL children and the families who host these students.
Access to essential healthcare for all EL students.
Afterschool vocational training in cultural performance, music and tailoring.
Afterschool vocational training in computers and arts.
College scholarships.
CCLL - the Beginning
Center for Changing Lives – Liberia
Founded in 2016, Center for Changing Lives – Liberia (CCLL) is a non-governmental organization envisioned by Liberian community organizer and pastor, Philip Nushann, and managed by Liberian social workers and counselors to inspire hope and improve quality of life for children who have fallen through the cracks of society. These children lost either one or both of their parents to Ebola or AIDS. They have been taken in by host families but without the support of CCLL they would not receive education.
Philip Nushann, founder
of Center for Changing
Lives – Liberia.
Background
Liberia’s proud and unique history includes efforts in the 1800’s of freed slaves from American to resettle in Africa and form a new country. As a result, much of Liberia’s governmental systems draw from American models.
While Liberia has, at times, been a leader amongst Western African countries in stability and prosperity, tensions between the new arrivals from American and native African populations have been present over the years. A struggle for reform in the 1990’s resulted in 13 years of Civil War that lasted until 2003. Many Liberians were displaced. A large number resettled in Minnesota.
Peace tree memorial – made of discarded guns
Peacemaker “Ma” Annie Nushann
Site of future CCLL campus
MOTHER ANNIE NUSHANN
Liberia’s history also includes the election of the first woman president in all of Africa, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The leadership of women played a significant role in ending the Civil War. CCLL founder, Philip Nushann, was raised during the war period. His mother, Annie Nushann, was one of the key leaders of the Liberian Women’s Movement for Peace. She has been recognized by the United Nations for her work as the founder of the Peace Hut Movement. “Ma Annie” was instrumental in working on a grassroots level in her home county, Bong County, to establish the new campus for Center for Changing Lives.