Expose of Katie Meyler's More Than Me & its culture of abuse

[hoipolloi]

Pro Publica has published a lengthy investigative article on the "charity" More Than Me run by Katie Meyler in Liberia. [Trigger warnings for linked article since it has details of sexual abuse & violence]

She apparently got her start in foreign aid work as a fundie:

Quote

First touching down in [Liberia in] 2006 for an internship with an evangelical charity, she would wander the streets of Monrovia, a beacon of opportunity. She danced with the children she met hauling coal and selling bananas, who told her if they could have anything in the world, they would go to school.

She founded the More Than Me charity to establish a school for girls at risk of sexual exploitation and violence in the West Point area of Monrovia.  It turned out that her primary Liberian colleague & sometime boyfriend, a man named Macintosh Johnson, was systematically abusing a number of the girls at the school, threatening them into silence with losing their scholarships or even their lives. The reporting is very detailed and devastating which is probably why More Than Me has issued a pre-emptive statement. 

It's not clear that there's still a fundie tie to this "charity" but then their website presence appears to be very curated -- pretty much the only links that show up in a quick google search are theirs or positive PR items.

 

[sleepy_doggos]

Pro Publica has published a lengthy investigative article on the "charity" More Than Me run by Katie Meyler in Liberia. [Trigger warnings for linked article since it has details of sexual abuse & violence]
She apparently got her start in foreign aid work as a fundie:

First touching down in [Liberia in] 2006 for an internship with an evangelical charity, she would wander the streets of Monrovia, a beacon of opportunity. She danced with the children she met hauling coal and selling bananas, who told her if they could have anything in the world, they would go to school.

She founded the More Than Me charity to establish a school for girls at risk of sexual exploitation and violence in the West Point area of Monrovia.  It turned out that her primary Liberian colleague & sometime boyfriend, a man named Macintosh Johnson, was systematically abusing a number of the girls at the school, threatening them into silence with losing their scholarships or even their lives. The reporting is very detailed and devastating which is probably why More Than Me has issued a pre-emptive statement. 
It's not clear that there's still a fundie tie to this "charity" but then their website presence appears to be very curated -- pretty much the only links that show up in a quick google search are theirs or positive PR items.
 
Thank you for sharing this piece.

[Terrie]

Reading both the article and the statement, the kindest interpertation is that the founder was naive and clueless and got caught in the idea of the charity. But I suspect the reality involves a heavy-duty dose of arrogance, given reports of ignoring those with experieince and putting the unexperienced in positions of power. 

[Terrie]

On 10/11/2018 at 1:38 PM, hoipolloi said:

It's not clear that there's still a fundie tie to this "charity" but then their website presence appears to be very curated -- pretty much the only links that show up in a quick google search are theirs or positive PR items.

From the article:

Quote

In a 2017 presentation at her old church in Bedminster, N.J., Meyler described a Liberian government official who “hated me because she was jealous we were doing more.” The official had told her: “Over my dead body, you’re not going to have this house. We’re closing you down.”

Meyler told the congregation, “The team starts, like, praying and fasting that she would get Ebola.” She said, “I’m like, ‘I don’t think that’s right; do what you need to do.’” Meyler’s story concluded: “Unfortunately, she’s not around anymore. We don’t know what — she’s not around anymore. I mean, not to say that the prayer for her to get Ebola was a good thing. I don’t think that was a good thing. But God took care of that.”

Sounds pretty ddang fundie to me.