A Liberian Journey into Water Storytelling

A Life Shaped by Water and Witnessing

My name is Lucia N. Yeenee. An environmental economist, water storyteller, and a woman shaped by rivers, resilience, and the stubborn belief that stories can change the world. I come from Liberia, a country where water has always held two truths at once:

• It is joy, and it is hardship.

• It is memory, and it is warning.

• It is abundance, and it is scarcity.

From founding Zero Plastic Liberia, to serving as West Africa Regional Director at Bounce Back Recycle, to becoming the Global Impact Lead at the Water Storytellers Collective, every step I have taken has been anchored in the truth that communities carry the stories that policies often forget.

A Childhood Written in Water

Rivers were our playground and our joy

Before I learned the language of economics, before I understood environmental policy, before I ever imagined working in climate advocacy, I was a little girl chasing reflections in puddles after a Liberian rainfall. Water was our first inheritance. During school breaks, my siblings and I would travel to visit my late grandmother in Gbarnga city, Bong County. There, the river waited like an old friend, steady, patient, unbothered by the noise of the world. We played until our laughter was swallowed by flowing water. Those moments taught me that water is not just a resource. It is a refuge. It is memory.

The Changing Story of Water in Liberia

 Water scarcity and pollution are challenging communities in Liberia.

The river that once felt endless started to look tired. Hand pumps began to cough more

than they poured. Wells dried up long before the dry season ended. I watched families in Freedom land community including mine wake before dawn to chase water. I watched children miss school because the queue at the pump moved slowly. Liberia, a land blessed with so much water, quietly drowned in scarcity and pollution. For me, this was not just an environmental issue. It was a story. A painful one.

Why the Water Storytellers Collective Matters

When I speak about water, I am not speaking as an outsider looking in. I am speaking as someone who has walked miles to fetch it, as someone who bathed in rivers that felt holy, as someone who has watched communities bend under the weight of water insecurity, and as someone who believes that our voices, our lived experiences are not footnotes in global conversations, but sources of wisdom the world urgently needs.

This is why joining the Water Storytellers Collective feels like stepping into a room where my voice already belonged. Here, storytelling is not decoration. It is strategy. It is advocacy. It is power. This Collective understands something most institutions overlook which is that statistics may reveal the scale of a problem, but stories reveal its soul. For me, this role is not symbolic. It is responsibility. It is alignment.

What I Hope to Build and Become Here

As Global Impact Lead, my vision is simple but deep:

• Lift stories from the margins into the center of global water conversations.

• Highlight communities whose realities are often overshadowed by policy language.

• Use creativity, art, narrative, memory to drive real environmental impact.

• Connect African water narratives with global movements so our stories are not lost in translation.

I am here to gather the stories. The painful ones, the hopeful ones, the stubbornly resilient ones, and weave them into a narrative strong enough to push change into motion. And so I step into this role not just as a storyteller, but as a fellow listener.

• A fellow mourner for what we have lost.

• A fellow believer in what we can still restore.

• A fellow dreamer of the Liberia, and the world, we deserve.

I am here to witness, hold space and translate memory into momentum.

Water is not just a resource, it is a relationship. And relationships require protection, honesty, and a willingness to speak even when the message is heavy.

My Personal Invitation

So here I am! Sharing my first story as part of the Water Storytellers Collective.

If you are reading this, your story matters too.

Every ripple counts. Every testimony is a thread. Every shared experience becomes part of the current that moves us all forward.