Red Cross honors Deranamie, former refugee, for work in Liberia

Joseph Deranamie, a member of Concordia Lutheran Church, Worcester, Mass., was among five “community heroes” honored recently at “A Breakfast of Champions,” sponsored by the American Red Cross of Central Massachusetts.

Deranamie, a former refugee from Liberia, West Africa, is president of “Mission to Liberia,” a 501(c)3 non-profit organization he helped found in 2006 to serve the health care needs of those who failed to escape the devastation that decades of civil war have left behind in Liberia. The group has sent three 40-foot containers to Liberia filled with relief goods and building materials, as well as constructing the first floor of an outreach center and working to provide clean safe drinking water throughout Liberia.

Deranamie, after fleeing for his life from Liberia, spent more than 10 years in a refugee camp before he was resettled "through God's grace" in Worcester through the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. He was the first Liberian to join Concordia, whose membership is now "well over 50 percent Liberian," said Pr. Ann Burgdorf.

It was Deranamie's deep desire to ease the suffering of those left behind that inspired other to join his humanitarian effort -- that began with his request to Pr. Burgdorf to collect used sneakers for the thousands of Liberians still in refguee camps without shoes.

Click here for the rest of his story on YouTube.

On April 18, "Real Heroes," a television documentary about the men honored for acts of courage by the Red Cross, is scheduled to air on WCTR Charter TV3, a cable station in Worcester that produces award-winning orgiignal local programming. Deranamie's video also is scheduled to be featured on the website of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette soon.

Deranamie is a candidate for a Master of Divinity degree through the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in a program for people with life-experiences from other countries called TEEM (Theological Education for Emerging Ministries). A graduate of the New Generation School of Ministry at Buduburam Refugee Camp near Accra, Ghana, West Africa, he is an assistant minister at Concordia.