Meet Our Founder

My name is Goumah Conde. I am the founder of ELGE. I am a Liberian and a survivor of the brutal Liberian civil war that lasted for over 13 years and left over 200,000 people dead within the first 5 years. I lived in the country for 9 of those years until the United Methodist Women gifted me with life and opportunities through a full scholarship to attend undergraduate school in the United States of America.

After many years of study and hours of counseling for my own traumas, I became a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. I also studied theology because I wanted to combine my faith with my practice. I specialized in trauma and attachment because I have a passion for working with couples and females who need emotional and mental healing. I have a particular desire to see people healed from trauma. I believe my own life experiences have given me that desire.

I have many friends and family members who suffered from sexual abuse due to the war in Liberia and unlike the many people that I get to provide trauma resolution counseling to in America, my sisters in Liberia have no one to turn to for healing. Professional mental health counseling is not a thing in Liberia and many women (and men) who are abused suffer from mental health issues. Rather than experiencing resolution, they experience isolation and denigration. They are called names such as “whores” “useless” “lazy” etc.

After several visits to my country once the fighting seized, I realized that the issue of rape was very rampant and there was absolutely nothing done to protect the girls experiencing this horrific act of violence! I needed to act quickly, complaining was not enough, so I partnered with a school who had a facility that we could use, and I started to provide trauma resolution counseling via zoom to girls who signed up through the school. I later sourced a counselor with some basic training through the United Nations who now facilitates the process in my absence and coordinates the scheduling for the girls to meet with me online weekly.

By the grace of God and the support of my family we have facilitated the trauma resolution process of over 50 Liberian girls! That includes our first resolution camp this past summer, which ran from July 16th -25th in Liberia. I look forward to running more camps and bringing healing to more girls in Liberia! Will you join me in this mission?