From shared struggle
to shared purpose.

Ours is a story of survival, faith, and an unbreakable bond; a story that began not in the warmth of family homes, but in the cold, uncertain reality of war. We were just children when the Liberian civil war shattered our world, forcing us to flee our homeland with nothing but the clothes on our backs. The remote town of Danané, in the Ivory Coast became our refuge, but even in exile, we carried the weight of loss, fear, and the struggle to rebuild our lives.

At the Seventh-Day Adventist High School in Danané, we were more than just students; we were refugees in every sense of the word. Some of us had lost parents, others had been separated from their families, and all of us knew what it meant to go to bed hungry, uncertain of what the next day would bring. But if war had stripped us of our homes, it had not stripped us of our will to fight—not with guns, but with education, unity, and an unshakable belief in each other.

At first, we were simply classmates, thrown together by circumstance. But by the time we reached twelfth grade, something extraordinary happened. Faced with the injustices of certain faculty members and the harsh reality that failure was not an option, we made a decision: No one in our class would be left behind. We would rise together, or we would not rise at all.

It was more than just a promise, it was survival. We formed the school’s first study group, determined that every single one of us would pass. We had no luxuries, no libraries, barely even enough food to sustain us. But we had each other. Whatever little we had; a cup of rice, a bottle of red palm oil, maggi cubes or salt, we shared. We gathered in the cramped rooms of classmates’ homes, huddled around dim lights, reading from the few notebooks we could find. And when homes were not an option, we turned to the streets, standing under streetlights from midnight to dawn, drawing questions from memory, pushing our minds beyond exhaustion.

It wasn’t just about passing tests. It was about proving to the world; and to ourselves, that we were more than our circumstances. We were brilliant, determined, unstoppable. When the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) exams came; the test that would determine our futures, we did not cower. We faced it with the same courage that had carried us through war, hunger, and despair. And when the results came in, we had done the impossible; every single one of us had excelled.

We graduated in 1997, side by side, except for one among us; denied not by failure, but by injustice. And though time has carried us across continents, across careers and families, the bond we formed in those desperate nights of studying, in those shared meals of scarcity, in those whispered prayers for survival, has never been broken.

For over two decades, we have remained more than classmates. We are brothers and sisters, bound not by blood, but by something even deeper; a love forged in suffering and strengthened by triumph. We have lost some of our own along the way, taken too soon by illness. But even in loss, we find strength in each other.

Today, UNICORN Reunion is more than just a name; it is a mission. We have become doctors, educators, leaders, and changemakers, carrying the same spirit that once kept us awake under streetlights into our communities, our workplaces, and our homes. We are giving back to Liberia, launching projects that uplift, educate, and inspire. We are spreading the Word of God, because faith was the anchor that carried us through the storm. We are still holding each other up, still ensuring that no one is left behind.