SI Newhouse School of Public Communications Assistant Professor, Ken Harper spent the summer as director for the media development project, Together Liberia, http://togetherliberia.org. The purpose of the project was to empower local communicators to share their own stories and develop institutional relationships with the Liberian media.

Together Liberia was comprised of professors and students from 5 US universities including Newhouse, Duke, UNC Chapel Hill, University of Oregon and University of Massachusetts Boston. Together they created teams to train Liberian students and professionals in photography, media ethics, multimedia and web design.

Over the course of nearly three months participants produced over 20 stories that were published in local media, one of which was published on the website Al Jazeera English. Additionally, five websites, two documentaries and one music video were produced.

Concurrently, Together Liberia's gear drive raised $20,000 in new and used communication equipment that was donated to http://ilabliberia.org, a local NGO, for distribution to local visual storytellers.