From Silence to Support: CHI and My Watchman Bring Digital GBV Reporting to New Kru Town | Crime

In New Kru Town, some cries never make it beyond the walls of a home.

Some stories are whispered to a neighbor. Some are carried quietly for years. Some survivors do not know where to go, whom to trust, or whether asking for help will expose them to even greater danger.

And sometimes, help exists, but the distance between a survivor and that help can feel impossibly far.

This Friday, September 4, 2026, Community Healthcare Initiative (CHI) and Advanced Converged Technologies LLC, operators of the My Watchman™ emergency response platform, will take an important step toward closing that distance.

The two organizations will officially launch Digital Reporting on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, an initiative designed to use the My Watchman™platform to strengthen confidential GBV reporting, referral coordination, case tracking, access to survivor support services, and community awareness.

Approximately 200 guests and participants are expected at the launch in New Kru Town, including Liberia’s Minister of Gender, Hon. Gbeme Horace-Kollie, along with representatives of Irish Aid, the Ministry of Justice, Liberia National Police, the Association of Female Lawyers of Liberia (AFELL), community leaders, service providers and other stakeholders working across Liberia’s GBV prevention and response ecosystem.

But beneath the technology, the partnerships and the official speeches is a much simpler idea:

A person in danger should never have to struggle to find help.

Technology With a Human Purpose

The partnership between CHI and My Watchman™ was formally signed on June 1, 2026.

Just over a month later, on July 10 and 11, the first Training of Trainers sessions were conducted in New Kru Town, preparing stakeholders and community actors to use the digital platform, and strengthening their understanding of how technology can support existing GBV reporting and referral pathways.

The initiative does not seek to replace the organizations, institutions and people already doing this work.

Instead, it seeks to connect them.

A survivor may need medical attention. Another may require psychosocial support. Another may need legal assistance, police intervention, emergency protection or simply trusted guidance on what to do next.

The challenge is often not the complete absence of services.

The challenge is ensuring that people know those services exist, can reach them quickly, and can move through the referral process without repeatedly reliving their trauma or becoming lost between institutions.

That is where CHI believes technology can make a difference.

“Community Healthcare Initiative (CHI) is advancing a new era of survivor-centered GBV prevention and response through digital innovation. By partnering with My Watchman™ to develop a secure mobile and web-based GBV reporting and referral platform, CHI is strengthening access to timely services, improving referral coordination, and ensuring that survivors and communities can connect more easily with available support systems.”

CHI says the initiative is intended to improve confidentiality, accountability, data management and community-led action while strengthening collaboration among healthcare providers, psychosocial support teams, legal actors and community structures.

The program also aims to expand awareness of survivor rights and available services to at least 2,000 community members.

For CHI Executive Director Naomi T. Solanke, however, the technology matters only because of the people it serves.

“Technology must serve people’s dignity and safety. Through this digital GBV reporting and referral platform, CHI is bringing services closer to survivors, strengthening community response systems, and ensuring that no survivor is left without support.”

— Naomi T. Solanke, Executive Director, Community Healthcare Initiative

Partnership, Not Parallel Systems

The initiative also represents a broader model of development that Liberia increasingly needs: government, nonprofit organizations and private-sector companies combining their respective strengths around a common social problem.

CHI brings years of community engagement, survivor-centered programming and knowledge of GBV referral pathways.

Government institutions provide the public mandate, legal framework, protection mechanisms and national response structures.

My Watchman™contributes digital infrastructure, geolocation capabilities, emergency coordination technology, data tools and a platform capable of connecting people to responders and service providers.

Rather than building another isolated system, the partnership is intended to make existing systems more accessible and effective.

Snorwlor F. Bropleh, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of My Watchman™, says that philosophy sits at the center of the company’s approach.

“At My Watchman™, we believe the strongest solutions are built through partnership, not by creating parallel systems. Our work with Community Healthcare Initiative reflects that approach. CHI and its referral actors already understand their communities and existing SGBV referral pathways. My Watchman™ brings technology, geolocation, emergency coordination, and data to help those systems work faster, smarter, and more effectively.

“That is our business model: collaborate, connect, and optimize what already exists. Whether it is SGBV, medical emergencies, or security, we are not trying to replace government, NGOs, or first responders. We bring the public, non-profit, and private sectors together around existing systems and use technology to make them work better for the people they serve.”

— Snorwlor F. Bropleh, Co-Founder, My Watchman™

It is a concept often described in business as shared value: using the capabilities of private enterprise not only to generate commercial value, but also to solve meaningful societal problems.

In this case, the value cannot be measured only in downloads, reports or datasets.

It may ultimately be measured in something far more important:

A survivor receiving help sooner.

A referral being completed instead of forgotten.

A community member recognizing abuse and knowing where to report it.

A woman realizing that she is not alone.

A girl discovering that what happened to her does not have to define the rest of her life.

For My Watchman’s Founder, It Is Personal

For My Watchman™ Founder and CEO Oliver Wleh Klark Jr., launching the initiative in New Kru Town carries a meaning that goes beyond business.

He was born and raised there.

Long before he became a technology entrepreneur, New Kru Town was home, the place where he learned about community, resilience and the difficult realities people sometimes endure behind closed doors.

For him, Friday’s launch represents a full-circle moment.

“I was born and raised in New Kru Town, so this is deeply personal for me.

“Growing up, you sometimes saw or became aware of things happening around you, violence, abuse, women and girls hurting, and as a young person, one of the hardest feelings was knowing something was wrong but not knowing what you could actually do about it. You could be angry. You could feel the pain. You could want to help. But sometimes you were simply helpless.

“That feeling stays with you.

“So to return to this same community years later with something we built, technology that can help someone report abuse, connect a survivor to support, strengthen the people already responding and potentially prevent someone from suffering in silence, is incredibly emotional for me.

“We cannot undo every painful story that has already happened. But if what we have built can help one woman get assistance sooner, help one girl find a safe path forward, or give one person the courage and the means to ask for help, then technology has become more than a business. It has become service.

“For me, that is what innovation should ultimately mean.”

— Oliver Wleh Klark Jr., Founder & CEO, My Watchman™

When Innovation Meets Community

Liberia does not lack people who care about sexual and gender-based violence.

Across the country, government agencies, civil society organizations, healthcare workers, police officers, lawyers, international partners and community volunteers have spent years working to prevent abuse and support survivors.

What remains critical is strengthening the connections between those actors, and making those systems easier for ordinary people to reach.

That is the promise behind the CHI–My Watchman partnership.

Not technology for technology’s sake.

Not another app simply because an app can be built.

But technology deliberately placed between a person who needs help and the people capable of providing it.

And perhaps there is something fitting about beginning this chapter in New Kru Town.

A community that has witnessed hardship is now becoming a testing ground for a different possibility: that innovation can emerge from Liberia, be built by Liberians, strengthened through non-profit expertise and government collaboration, and deployed to address some of the country’s most difficult social challenges.

Friday’s event will have speeches.

There will be photographs, dignitaries, demonstrations and official remarks.

But the real success of the program will be determined long after the chairs have been packed away.

It will be found in the survivor who discovers that help is closer than she thought.

In the community worker who can make a referral faster.

In the service provider who receives better information.

In institutions that coordinate instead of operating in silos.

And in communities that begin to understand that silence does not have to be the price of survival.

Because sometimes innovation is not about building the next big thing.

Sometimes it is about using what we have built to make sure that, when someone finally finds the courage to say, “I need help,” someone is there to hear them.

And to respond.