Kimmie Weeks returned to his native country, Liberia, this past Interterm for the first time in nearly seven years. Civil War had ravaged the country for most of the 1990s, and his people desperately needed food, water and health care. Weeks' altruism is well known at the College, so the fact that he answered the call and went to help is not surprising. What most don't know, though, is that Weeks' life has been something of a miracle. The return trip to Liberia may never have been possible because Weeks is lucky to be at the College, to have escaped his homeland and to even be alive at all.

Growing up in Liberia

Weeks is deliberate, soft-spoken and reflective, at peace yet teeming with ambition, a product of unrelenting violence and remarkable circumstances. In the mid-1990s, as the Liberian Civil War raged, Weeks, a teenager, sought to take his country's ills into his own hands. He was born in war-torn Liberia in 1981 and grew up witnessing the horrors confronting Liberian youth.

"I saw children suffer worse than I," the biographical Web site actionfornature.org quoted Weeks. "I watched children die, cut down by bullets or disease that in other parts of the world would no longer be considered a threat. I saw children in my country spend long days on the streets of the capital under the blazing African sun trying to sell goods for their families to survive, while thousands of others carried guns, fighting and killing one another. I saw the growing number of young children barely in their teens who were becoming prostitutes. School for these and many others was a fantasy."

Weeks himself was stricken with cholera at age 10; fortunately, he managed a remarkable recovery after teetering on the brink of death. Some reports suggest that Weeks' health grew so grim that a grave at a refugee burial site was dug for him.

Making a difference

In 1994, Weeks founded an organization named "Voice of the Future," which he said focused on "little campaigns to clean up Liberia." The group worked on children's rights and other humanitarian endeavors. "Voice of the Future" is currently affiliated with the United Nations; it provides services such as counseling for former child soldiers, among others.

Weeks spent the next few years expanding his reach in humanitarian aid in Liberia. According to the Web site, "In 1997, Kimmie established Liberia's first children's information service, 'The Children's Bureau of Information,' which now works alongside Search for Common Ground, Talking Drum Studio and UNICEF to produce radio programs aimed at reintegrating child soldiers into the community." The Web site explains, "The 15-minute weekly broadcasts are aired on three local radio stations. The bureau is also responsible for the publication of a national children's newsletter The Liberian Child and the annual Union of Young Journalists."

Later that year, Weeks sharpened his problem-solving focus. If he could not end the war, he would disarm the estimated 20,000 child soldiers still fighting.

The campaign against child soldiers laid the groundwork for Weeks' calling: public service. The task was far from simple, but Weeks said that progress was made almost from the beginning. "We had people talking to the rebels and asking them to disarm the children," he recalled. "They were doing it quite willingly. That was the climax of my work in Liberia." The situation rapidly improved, or at least it seemed to at the time. "In June 1997, everyone disarmed temporarily," Weeks remembered, in somber reflection upon what could have been.

National attention

A seemingly insurmountable roadblock subsequently fell in Weeks' way: the rise of Charles Taylor to power in 1997. Taylor reversed all of the initial progress from the previous year. According to Weeks, Taylor trained 500 Liberian children to serve as mercenaries amidst continuing violence in Sierra Leone. In response, Weeks authored an independent report on Taylor's utilization of child soldiers. Upon publication in December 1997, the report garnered national headlines across Liberia.

The Taylor government caught on and began to search for Weeks. "By January 1998, I had to get out," he said. "Soldiers came to my office and asked, 'Where's Kimmie Weeks?' We all said that we had never seen him; they didn't know I could be so young." Weeks, a 17-year-old Liberian being hunted by his own government, entered hiding for three weeks, stopping at "friend's house after friend's house."

"Government troops would come to each house after I left," he said. "There were men at my house, and my school was shut down. The story dominated the Liberian media, and most of the editorial teams that covered it were arrested."

Asylum in the U.S.

In January 1998, a friend arranged for Weeks to travel by car from Liberia to the Ivory Coast. Hiding in a dance troupe costume and carrying false identification, he made the trip successfully. Seven months later, the U.S. government granted Weeks asylum. "The U.S. was the natural place to go," Weeks said. "I also had family here."

Weeks settled into a high school in Delaware, an ocean apart from his mother and his homeland. "I couldn't go back [to Liberia] for a while," he said. "But as long as I stayed away from Liberian politics, Taylor wouldn't go after my mom." Weeks remained safe in the U.S. and earned admission to the College during his senior year in high school.

Amherst was a world Weeks never expected to see, much less participate in. "If, 10 years ago, someone had said to me that I'd be attending a top liberal arts college, I would have told them to see a psychiatrist," Weeks said. "To go from war and suffering to such an amazing place is so far-fetched."

Returning home

In 2004, Taylor was ousted from power in Liberia. Weeks, itching to go back to see his family and to do whatever was possible to help his people, jumped at the opportunity to return. Over Interterm, flanked by heavy security because some of Taylor's "people" remained in power, Weeks spent five days in Liberia. A BBC film crew, which is still editing a documentary about Weeks ("Kimmie Weeks: Back to the Front"), accompanied him on his trip.

On his Interterm trip, Weeks headed a mission for the Children Affected by War organization, which assesses the effects of war on children in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia and arranges "what help it can offer."

"There were food shortages, medicine shortages, and there was no access to health care or food or water," Weeks said. "Originally I thought I'd try to supply computers and educational supplies, but when I got on the ground, children were lacking the basic necessities of life. In refugee camps there are 40,000 people, half of whom are children. They are not allowed to work. No water is available other than for purchase. In Sierra Leone, thousands of girls have been abducted by rebel armies. Girls were raped, and there's no counseling; there are no opportunities. In Liberia, orphanages don't have roofs. None of the playgrounds have been rebuilt." Despite the destitute settings, "It felt like a grand homecoming," Weeks said of the trip.

Humanitarian for life

Weeks is working with the College organization Education Without Boundaries to fund the first women's center in Sierra Leone. Five-College students have been raising money for the project. "I hope part of Amherst's legacy is to help build this women's center," he said. "In Liberia, we're trying to rebuild playgrounds. We really need more help."

Weeks is anxious to continue his work, "I really want to go back," he said. "Liberia is at a stage right now where it is very fragile. There are lots of opportunities to develop it. I want to be in the middle of all that. We can think of things in a larger world context and contribute much more. But we have got to start working." In the next few months, Weeks will work with the International Coalition for Children to devise humanitarian programs at conferences on the plight of children.

Listening to Weeks describe his experiences in an interview, one detects an obvious suggestion of irreconcilability between his old life and his new life. For one, Weeks' brush with death, destruction and hopelessness, and his absolutely unrelenting dedication to helping others, stand out in an environment of relative privilege. What Amherst students take for granted could bring about tremendous tangible change in Weeks' homeland.

But Weeks straddles the two worlds with a brilliant sense of tolerance for both. He said that global awareness at the College exists but should be increased. "I thought that there wouldn't be any consciousness here," he admits. "I have found that there are people who are deeply caring about world events. A lot of students are overwhelmed by their own problems, but I've worked with tons of students who are deeply caring. I hope more people get actively involved. Amherst students think critically about everything. Sometimes, the feeling is that if it involves just writing a letter, there's no point. But a huge difference can be made if people realized that you can actually make a difference."

"There are over a billion children in extreme poverty," Weeks said. "They don't have a dollar a day. If students turned some of their free spending into humanitarian aid, they could make such a difference. Anywhere from $300-500 could pay for a safe drinking well for a community of 500 people." But Weeks is realistic about the impact of one person's efforts. "It's hard to measure one's accomplishments when so many children are still suffering and dying every day from preventable causes," he said in a quotation for his high school, the Northfield Mount Hermon School. "Yes, a few lives might have been saved because of some of my work, and yes, a few more children might be in school as a result, but these achievements pale in comparison to the 30,000 children who die every day from preventable causes."

Weeks will attend law school next year­-"not to practice," he is quick to clarify. "I'll do humanitarian work all through my life," he said. "I'll die a poor but happy man. The greatest reward in life is making a difference for a child or for a family somewhere in the world."