Lost in Liberia

Leila wants to help. The 30 year old Irishwoman receives instruction for her first foreign assignment in the education center of the International Red Cross in Geneva. She is sent to Liberia, not exactly her dream destination. As a journalist there she reported about the civil war, and knows the destruction that 15 years of terror by warlords, the military and child soldiers have wrought. Leila reaches Sanniquellie, her assignment location in the Liberian bush, on her birthday. Here, with her local team, she should reunite families separated by the war. Working with the local Red Cross field officers is satisfying for Leila. But she also sees the limits of her work: even in successful searches for missing children their homecoming remains problematic, since former child soldiers are everything but welcome in their home villages. In the Red Cross delegation, with evening curfew and without an internet connection or mobile phone reception, Leila experiences the difference between being alone and being lonely. Despite the obvious limitations to humanitarian relief, Leila tries to meet her own expectations on her work. The young development aid volunteer Leila is sent by order of the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) to Liberia in Western Africa. She is assigned to reunite parents with their children who got separated from their families during the war. The documentary broaches the issue of the dilemma between humanitarian help and the given power structure.