Page 35 - Time Magazine-November 05, 2018

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The charity official who alerted police Liberians marched on Oct. 18 to demand smaller, mission-driven charities, and the
to the rapes, Michelle Spada, told Young justice for victims and more aggressive leeway those organizations are given by
that she felt initial intense pressure from oversight of aid agencies and education national governments.
a member of the More Than Me board not Another part of the answer is far more
to rush to the authorities. Spada said that To all the girls who were raped by Ma- specific to the idiosyncratic, personal na-
when she argued the case, the board mem- cintosh Johnson in 2014 and before: we ture of Meyler’s project and the man who
ber, Skip Borghese, told her, “Get off your failed you,” read a statement posted on was once at the heart of it. Macintosh
f-cking soapbox.” Through a lawyer, Bor- the More Than Me website on Oct. 12. Johnson was a charismatic charmer with
ghese denied the statement. “We gave Johnson power that he ex- a 10th-grade education and a high pro-
Young’s report had immediate impact. ploited to abuse children. Those power file in West Point, the sprawling shanty-
Within days of publication, the More dynamics broke staff ability to report town where he lived. Young wrote that he
Than Me board announced that private the abuse to our leadership immediately. spoke of his youth as a child soldier, and
HIV tests would be given to students of Our leadership should have recognized had run a vigilante crew that enforced
its Monrovia academy. The board also an- the signs earlier ...” rough justice where police were scarce.
nounced not one but two investigations: A third investigation was launched by He also volunteered for a charity, and dis-
the first would be carried out by “a law the government of Liberia, which after played a talent as a sort of interlocutor be-
firm with education and investigatory 2015 placed More Than Me in charge of tween well-intentioned Westerners and
expertise to conduct an in-depth, inde- 18 other schools in the country. Street pro- his Monrovia neighborhood; at one point,
pendent audit of our organization,” the tests in the capital demanded the charity he showed Bono around.
board said in a statement. The second be disbanded there. They also asked an- Meyler gravitated to Johnson. She
probe would be conducted by the char- other, more probing question: How did called him the “Jesus of West Point,” and it
ity’s Liberian advisory board. the scandal go unnoticed for three years? became his handleonInstagram.“There’s
Meyler, who had maintained the only something different about Macintosh and
mistake was hiring Johnson, was asked to Part of the answer may lie in it’s obvious,” Meyler wrote on Facebook
take a leave of absence while the new in- other concerns pressed by the Liberian in August 2010. “People look up to him.”
quiries went forward. Borghese, who had protesters: the extent to which poor He was made the primary local contact
become board chairman, resigned. countries rely on international groups, for More Than Me, and held the power
“We are deeply, profoundly sorry. from large multinational aid agencies to to change lives and generate wealth—
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