ATLANTIC INSTITUTE
CONVERSATIONS ON CONFIDENCE PODCAST SERIES

PODCAST 04 | ABRAHAM FREEMAN

Music Thoughts in G by Cheyenne Mize.

A Freeman …My childhood in Liberia was like Hell. But sometimes stress has a way of being positive or making you stronger…Let’s try to always see how we can turn our negatives into positives, and if things happen, what part did I play?  Because usually, when you have this mindset of maybe someone being responsible for what happens to you, it makes you miss the big picture. Always know that in the end, you have your own destiny, and whatever happens, you have a control to put a brake or to say, “Yes, let’s go on.” Once you are persistent, ultimately there will always be a positive result, there will always be a positive experience.

F Sweeney: Environmental activist Abraham Freeman, Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity US & Global, on his determination to take the positive from the trauma of a war-torn childhood.

Welcome to CONVERSATIONS ON CONFIDENCE with clinical psychologist and neuroscientist Professor Ian Robertson from the Global Brain Health Institute in Dublin, and me, Fionnuala Sweeney.  Ian is the author of HOW CONFIDENCE WORKS: THE NEW SCIENCE OF SELF-BELIEF.  In this series, we speak to Fellows from the Global Atlantic community about the role of confidence (or lack of it) in their lives, both growing up, and in their work today as Atlantic Fellows advancing fairer, healthier, more inclusive societies.

Now, back to Abraham on the origins of the First Liberian Civil War, which dominated his childhood.

A Freeman: Liberia was founded in 1822 by free slaves from America. After slavery was abolished in America, a group called the American Colonisation Society brought these free slaves back to Africa. Unfortunately, the free slaves, whatever treatment was meted against them in America, was brought back with them and the indigenous was marginalised for more than 100 years. The resulting consequence was a serious war in Liberia for 14 years. There was a lot of warring factions; everybody was angry with everybody. Almost all the children in Liberia, most of them were forced to be child soldiers. Discrimination, inequity and injustice permeated our society. That was my childhood. But once I had the opportunity to do, I would be the one to stand up against inequity and injustice, because once the cycle of inequity and injustice persists over and over, it only breeds animosity, bad feelings, repayment, and hate, and that’s what I don’t want to keep going on.

F Sweeney: That is a fantastic ideal to have. Would it be OK to describe how the war impacted you and your family, and the safety of the environment you expected to grow up in?

A Freeman: Yes. I was born in a loving family. My mother actually had 10 children – I’m the last – five passed away from preventable childhood diseases. We were forced to go in the bush and seek shelter, and whether it was rain, whether it was diseases - diarrhoea, malaria, whatever - my parents had to do all they could for us to survive. So, we survived the war. There are a lot of scars - you know, all my sisters, because females were vulnerable for gender-based violence and other things. But through it all, we made it, and last year, my father was 87 years, and he passed away, but I still have my mother around; she’s 76 years old.  So I’m happy that the experience really made me to be who I am, made me resilient, and made to not take peace for granted, because peace is everything.

I Robertson: What a sobering experience for those of us living in the privileged world to listen to. You had your mother and father with you as you sheltered there. Is that right?

A Freeman: Yeah.

I Robertson: And being together as a family must have made it just so much more tolerable to survive these terrible hardships. Is that true?

A Freeman: Yes. So, in our hideouts, my dad was there teaching me ABC, teaching me kindergarten lessons, and after the war, I could spell words that even people who have gone to school couldn’t spell, because my dad was there. Every opportunity he had, he would teach me how to spell a word; I could recite the 66 books in the Bible, and I could do a lot of things. I’ve never gone to school before, but my dad was there playing that role.

I Robertson: What a fantastic story. You were saying, Abraham, that going through this hardship made you more resilient later in life. It’s not the case that if you go through tough times, then automatically you will be stronger. It requires a way of looking at your hardship, a way of addressing it, of understanding and framing what’s happened to you. Were you aware of having to really consciously do that, in terms of how you responded to the very, very tough experiences you had?

A Freeman: It’s somehow difficult to describe, because my own upbringing and my own childhood and many other children in Liberia’s childhood and upbringing, we had every opportunity to break down and not know good. But depending on help from your family and how curious you are, you know that regardless of what bad or what condition you may be going through, there’s always this instance that makes you know that there’s always good.

I would also say religion play a big role. My parents are devout Christians, so they instil that Christian value in us. In the Bible how people overcame tribulations and temptation, you know these are things that made me and many other children in Liberia to be resilient and try to be a positive example in our society. In our time, we also have access to internet, so it makes the world some kind of a global village, and you can know what’s happening in another country, and you can aspire to be that person, because of what you see other people being.

I Robertson: It seems you felt secure or grounded not only in your family but in your values in this sense of there being these fundamental values to do with goodness and your religious beliefs. And that somehow that offered a kind of rock that made it easier to tolerate the tough times you were going through, but also gave you a sense of belief in the future and the possibility of finding that good in the future in spite of the fact that it maybe wasn’t entirely apparent in the circumstances.

A Freeman: Yes, Ian. That’s what I’m saying. My upbringing and religious values, what I saw my parents doing, and how my parents always stood up for peace, regardless of whatever circumstances we were going through, made me know that there’s always good. And again, there is that consciousness that make you know if you are doing the right thing, if you are not doing the right thing. So, yes, our own religious beliefs, cultural background, our society, regardless of everything we were going through, pointed to, if you want to be a good person, you have to do x, y, z. This is what me and many other Liberian youth are doing right now.

When I went to Washington DC for the initial convening of the Atlantic Fellowship, we had this exercise called ‘privilege walk’. We all stood on a line and questions were asked, especially questions that has to do with privilege, and most of my cohort were moving forward where I was at the back.  At the end of the exercise, all of my cohorts were crying. And I didn’t know that they were so crying because of my position. After, we had a reflection and conversation; that’s when I got to know and I was like, really?  

So, this conversation about privilege, it actually has to do with who you have a conversation with. Because go back in my country, this exercise, if I conduct it with other people in my family or in my environment or in my society, then I will also cry for them. So, that resilience is something that has been built in me from how my childhood was and from my own consciousness that there’s always a good beyond every evil.

F Sweeney: It’s amazing, Abraham, how you’re speaking to the fact that on some level, you didn’t see yourself as particularly under-privileged. Am I correct?

A Freeman: Yeah. So, like I said, privilege depends on who you talk to. Because for instance, if you were to sit with Jeff Bezos and Dangote, the richest guy in Africa, and you discuss with them privilege, maybe we who are in this room might be less privileged than they are. So, it actually depends who you discuss privilege with.

I Robertson: It’s much easier to be confident if you have privilege, like I have, for instance; if you have the privilege of education, privilege of economic status, other kinds of status. It’s so much tougher to be confident when, like you were saying, you don’t have these various privileges.

What I’m learning from you is that three things have really given you the confidence to be doing what you’re doing now, which we can come back to. And one of these, the most important possibly, is your family and their support and their example. But tied in with that is your religious beliefs in these basic values of the existence of goodness and the need to find goodness, even though it’s not obviously apparent.

But the third thing is what you said at the very beginning: if you have the right attitude to the sense of being strengthened by adversity, my research suggests that one of the biggest sources of confidence is having got through tough times in spite of the fear, in spite of the anxiety, in spite of the suffering, to have just kept moving through them actually does act like a kind of vaccination or inoculation emotionally to make you more resilient for future stresses. Would you identify with these three things?

A Freeman: Yes, my family, my religious and cultural beliefs as well as my experiences. Because what I also do believe is that there’s always positive in every negative. Take for instance Ebola in Liberia. We were one of the countries that were highly hit in the sub-region. Ebola somehow unknowingly prepare us for Coronavirus. Before we could have a case in Liberia, people were already practising those health measures. So, this is a clear example that adversity has a way of preparing you for a positive. It’s actually left with the individual how you take it, whether you feel positive about an experience or negative.

I Robertson: You said that you always find a positive in something negative. I’m very struck by your taking on the challenge of plastics. Watching your amazing video, you think what an enormous challenge! Many people would feel defeated by the scale of the problem. Why did you select that, and what has been your experience of confronting that challenge of the plastics?

A Freeman: So, when I was sent to Morovia to go to school, I saw in other communities there were not a lot of waste all over, but in communities like where I lived, there were a lot of waste just all over. When I started going to school, I kept learning that the way we treated the environment is what comes back to haunt us. So, I decided to say, yes, I can do something about it, because there were constant disease outbreaks - diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid and other transmissible diseases. I got to know that most of these sanitation-related diseases has to do with how we treat our environment.

Liberia today, less than five per cent of the country have access to pipeline water so we use this sachet water to drink safe water. The sachet water actually saves us from diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases, but then it pollutes the environment. We have 500 millilitre in one sachet. An adult would drink between three to five sachets. In urban cities, maybe you talk about maybe three million. So just imagine multiplying that by the number of sachets. When the plastic is in the street everywhere, it clogs drainages, and when drainages are clogged you have flooding, and then flooding affect our water resources and it affect where we live and everything.

So, I decided to take on plastic. And waste management is so huge, but when plastics are washed into the ocean, they also pollute the world ocean. And there are a lot of estimates from the United Nations Environmental Programme that, if the world does not do anything about plastic from now until 2050, there will be more plastic in the world ocean than the fish we have. So, these are serious, alarming warnings from the scientific perspective that we have to take seriously. That’s why I decided to take on plastic because in Liberia we are producing plastic and I want to create awareness as well as advocate for reduction in plastic. And my advocacy will not just be talking, but I want to do. That’s why we are now using the sachet water in Liberia to produce raincoats, to produce paving bricks and other stuff. This is actually where my idea of recycling comes from.

F Sweeney: You spoke about losing five of your siblings in childhood to preventable diseases. How has that influenced the kind of work that you do, and how is the situation in Liberia for young people today in terms of treatment for preventable diseases?

A Freeman: My siblings that passed, they are all my older siblings. So, when I ask mother her own understanding, she will actually blame something beyond her control, maybe from some African sign. But for me, I know that my siblings would have been alive today if there was a better sanitation structure in Liberia and in the communities that my mother lived.

So, this has actually pushed me to create awareness that our own behaviour, our own activities, our own efforts, can help us as well as harm us. So, let’s make decisions that help us. And these are how we treat our waste, how we treat our environment, how we relate to each other, and how we interact with the ecosystem. Behaviour change is one of the hardest things to do on earth, to change somebody’s behaviour, but then it’s working. For instance, those days, there were no vaccination; people strongly opposed vaccination. But as evidence is presented, and people get to believe scientifically, it somehow changes their behaviour. So preventable diseases are being tackled not only from the vaccine perspective, but also from our own attitude and our own arrangement when it comes to sanitation in the environment.

F Sweeney: Do you think there is a common thread between your experiences with your siblings having suffered and died from not being able to be treated for what were preventable diseases, and this work you do today?

A Freeman: I think the common thread that I see is inequity and injustice. What I experience or what my family experience, other Liberians in Liberia did not experience it because they have the privilege, and they have the resources, and they have the means. Inequity is not only in Liberia; it’s all around the world. It’s in developing countries, developed countries. There is a common thread that the world has to make people aware because if inequity and injustice persist in a society for a long time, the resulting consequence can be really, really devastating. And I’m a witness of that.

F Sweeney: You think it’s important to show vulnerability, that it doesn’t necessarily mean that you lack confidence. Could you talk about that?

A Freeman: For me, being vulnerable comes from the birthplace of strength, of authenticity, because this is what actually I experienced. If I say it another way, I would not be telling my story. So, being vulnerable and being truthful comes from being yourself.

F Sweeney: Your approach to vulnerability, the importance you place on demonstrating vulnerability, is that common in Liberia? Would there be others like you who feel the same way?

A Freeman: Yes, a lot of students, a lot of youth, a lot of others are thriving and making headways in Liberia. After all is said and done, it’s left with you, the individual. Whatever experience you have, whether you take it for the negative or you take it for the positive, these two elements have a great, great deal to do with you and which direction you want to go. A lot of youth are doing well, but we also have a growing issue with drug abuse. And this is something that is really claiming my attention, because most of the youth, after the war and everything, they are experiencing serious, serious drug abuse. And that is something that needs to stop.

I Robertson: Abraham, you’ve set yourself a huge challenge of improving the environment. Have there been times when you’ve felt a sense of despondency or failure in achieving this goal, of improving the environment, and how have you managed that, if you have?

A Freeman: A lot of time, there are instances of failure and challenging times.  When I applied for the Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity programme and I was selected, it was my eleventh time applying for the programme.  So, I was so happy. And when I went to the US embassy, they denied me for the third time and it was really, really devastating. But I came home and wrote a five-pages letter to the US Embassy and told them the reason I was going to the States - most Liberians go and don’t come back - but I told them, “I will go and come back, because I know what I’m going for.”

So, again, failure, your own negative experiences, actually has to do how you see it. So, when they denied me, I just could have come and sit home and forget about everything. But I still try. And on my fourth attempt to the US Embassy, I was given a visa to go to the US to train for this programme and here am I today.

I Robertson: Abraham, that’s quite a remarkable persistence through setbacks. The fact that you’d had these eventual successes in spite of the setbacks, the fact that you were knocked back 10 times, the fact that you only got the Embassy approval on the fourth attempt, I’m imagining that’s given you much more of a staying power and a resilience and a confidence that you can do something about the projects you’re involved in. Have these failures actually been a kind of energy for the other work you’re now doing, now that you’re back in Liberia?

A Freeman: Yes, Ian, they are. Once you are doing something positive, there will always be instances of negative feelings and negative comments, and it depends how you look at it.

Another example is that when I decided to do this plastic stuff, I did a research on the impact of plastic pollution on the environment. I just took a portion of my salary every month, and I would print flyers and carry to restaurants, to university campuses. And then a guy read the story, and he got fascinated and decided to publish it in a newspaper. He reached out and said, “Oh, you wrote a nice story, can I publish it?” And I said, “Yes, that would be good,” because I didn’t have any means of my story being published. When he published it, my caption was the caption for the story: “Environmentalist proposes that government should ban plastics in Liberia.”

People read the story, and the only comment on that story was that a guy said, “This is not a solution; an environmentalist should be able to turn plastic into something.” When I saw that comment, I didn’t see it like disparaging; I saw it like a motivation, and I started to research online how can I use plastic to produce something out of it. Through YouTube videos, a colleague and I were able to start our first recycling; we used plastic to produce paving [slabs]. And when BBC African Voices Changemaker heard about this, they flew all the way from South Africa, and they came to Liberia and did a documentary for us. So, again, his negative comment made me have another perspective that I shouldn’t just talk, but I should do something about the problem, and here am I today.

I Robertson: A remarkable story. Because so many of us – and I include myself in this – if someone criticises us and says, “Oh, that’s not what you should be doing,” a lot of people would tend to either try and react against that person and devalue what they’ve said and try and justify my position, what I was doing, or else maybe even get discouraged and pull back and feel, oh, this isn’t any good. And both of these are me, defending my ego.  And the awful thing about making your ego too much a factor in what you’re doing is that you don’t learn. Your brain is so occupied in trying to repair and protect your ego from criticism that it doesn’t focus attention on learning from the setback or the criticism or the failure.

What you just gave there was such a beautiful example of, because you weren’t personally threatened, because you allow yourself to be vulnerable, because it’s not all about you as an ego here – this is about a mission or goal you have – that critical comment was actually something that has launched you in a completely different direction for your environmental work. But it’s quite unusual for people to have that orientation to the world, of seeing the positive in every negative, including the criticisms and the setbacks. Is that your experience, or do you think in your culture maybe that’s more common?

A Freeman: It’s my own experience from my dad and how he used every opportunity he had to make me learn something new. There is this link between how he saw things and how he impacted me, and that actually helped me; it helped me. He made me know that your feelings, your destiny, it’s in your own hands. People will come and maybe they have something on you, but ultimately you have the power, you have the will.  So, yes, from my family values again, from the cultural, religious or traditional values, after all of these things, everything is left with the individual.

I Robertson: Confidence grows from setbacks, as you’ve said already, and from adversity, if you get through it, providing you’ve got the mindset to see the possibility in every setback or negative. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have persisted with your 10 applications.

The other thing is how potentially contagious confidence is. Your tendency to see the good in everything or the possibility of good is infectious. You used some of your salary to print and put up some of these posters yourself.  That at times must have felt, “Oh, this is a futile thing to do; it’s only a few people will read them”. But suddenly, there’s a newspaper article. And then someone else gets inspired by what you do, but makes a critical comment, saying, “Look, you should actually be doing something with the plastic.”

So, it’s the fact that you’ve influenced other people, including myself here. Your confidence is contagious, and that’s the most remarkable value for the world. You can never predict who it’s going to influence and what they will go on to do.

A Freeman: Yeah. Let’s try to always see how we can turn our negatives into positives, and if things happen, what part did I play?  Because usually, when you have this mindset of maybe someone being responsible for what happens to you, it makes you miss the big picture. Always know that in the end, you have your own destiny, and whatever happens, you have a control to put a brake or to say, “Yes, let’s go on.” Once you are persistent, ultimately there will always be a positive result, there will always be a positive experience.

F Sweeney: It’s been wonderful listening to you and just how positive you are, and patient. I really, really respect and admire that.  Can you talk to us about your vision for the future, Abraham, and how confidence, and your confidence, might play into making that a reality?

A Freeman: I look at the future to be somewhere where people will have equal opportunity, and where equity will prevail. I know this is difficult, but if everyone at every level can have some kind of a consciousness about equity, about treating another person right, thinking about another person before taking a decision, the world would be a better place. I want to create this awareness about plastic for the world to not just see plastic as a waste, but to see plastic as a resource when it is properly recycled.

So, each individual should have that mindset that I have to take care of the environment, and whatever decision I make today, will affect the next generation.  Every decision has some unintended consequence so think about the intended consequences, and also think about the unintended consequences. I actually envisage a future where everybody would be conscious of our inequity and injustice and try to do their part to minimise injustice. We will not say everything will be a utopia, but you can play your part, and then we can make the world a better place for this and future generations to come.

I Robertson: Are you optimistic about your impact on the environment in Liberia?  Can you see progress towards what it is you would like to achieve?

A Freeman: Yeah, definitely so. In the community where I live, where we’re doing our work, there people are conscious about waste separation and recycling, as well as taking some responsibility for the environment. It’s something that’s not so popular in Liberia. But, like I said earlier, behaviour change is one of the most difficult things to do, but once you are persistent, there’s always result. And gradually, we can see that happening in Liberia.

F Sweeney: I actually have one more question, if you don’t mind?  Abraham, what does being a leader mean to you?

A Freeman: Leadership for me means taking the responsibility of others and to make them be a leader.  You instil in them that same understanding of leadership. It’s not that people should follow you, but you should be the one to make other people realise the dream and be who they want to be. Once we have that kind of approach and mindset to leadership, then we are doing good for the next generation. In short, it’s just taking responsibility to make other people to be a leader.

Music Thoughts in G by Cheyenne Mize.

F Sweeney: Environmental activist Abraham Freeman, Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity US & Global, bringing us to the end of today’s CONVERSATION.

For more CONVERSATIONS ON CONFIDENCE, go to our website at www.atlanticfellows.org.  Here you can also learn more about the seven Atlantic Fellows programs empowering emerging leaders to advance fairer, healthier, more inclusive societies.  

I’m Fionnuala Sweeney. Thank you for listening.  I do hope you will join Ian and me for our next CONVERSATION with Tracey Naledi, founding chairperson of Tekano, Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity in South Africa.

ENDS | DURATION: 28’ 33

‍