Monrovia, April 2 -- The midday sun beats down here as 10-year-old Nulee runs from one vehicle to another with plastic sachets of cold-water urging passengers to buy. "Cold water, cold water here! Make your chest cold!" he calls out in a high-pitched voice.

By Joseph Titus Yekeryan with New Narratives

His childhood, once filled with the promise of school and a bright future, has been overshadowed by poverty. Last year after her farm produced a small crop, his grandmother Nowai, pulled him out of the second grade to help the family. Nulee had loved reading and dreamed of being a banker. Now he has much more simple dreams.

"This is all I have to do for my grandmother and me to keep eating," Nulee says with despair. (Nulee and his grandm...