Monrovia, Feb. 9 -- In Molowamu Town of Bokomu District, childhood dreams are quietly slipping away, not because children lack ability or ambition, but because the basic structures meant to support them are missing. Hidden behind impassable roads and years of official neglect, the town stands as a stark reminder of how rural Liberia continues to fall through the cracks of national development.

Molowamu is isolated both physically and socially, cut off from essential services that many communities elsewhere take for granted. The result is a cycle of hardship that begins early in life. Children drop out of school before they can properly read or write, teenage pregnancies and early marriages become common, and many young boys and girls are...