MEET ELIJAH MANYON: The 27-Year-Old Blind Activist Advising the United Nations in Liberia

MONROVIA, Liberia — At 27, Elijah Manyon has done what few activists twice his age ever achieve: he now advises the United Nations in his own country.

Born on July 24, 1999, in Buchanan City, Grand Bassa County, Manyon is blind. He is the National Secretary General of the Christian Association of the Blind (CAB), Liberia — an organization that has trained and served blind Liberians since 1985 — and, since October 2026, a Youth Adviser to the United Nations Country Team in Liberia, serving a two-year mandate on the UN Youth Advisory Panel (Cohort II).

For years, Manyon has championed human rights and disability rights across Liberia — in village halls, on radio, and in front of government ministers. In October 2026, he led a press conference in Monrovia on Liberia's draft National Disability Rights, Inclusion and Support Act, warning that the 168-section rewrite quietly deletes the 4% employment quota for persons with disabilities contained in the 2005 Act. His six words from that day are now quoted across the country's disability movement: "from four percent, to zero."

He calls the cost of exclusion "the exclusion tax" — the trillions the world economy loses by designing disabled people out. The World Health Organization counts 1.3 billion persons with disabilities worldwide; research cited by the World Economic Forum values the disability market at $13 trillion. "They will own the market everyone else is too blind to see," he says.

On October 15, 2026, he led CAB's White Cane Safety Day commemoration in Paynesville City, issuing a position statement on the safety and dignity of blind Liberians. His op-ed on the draft disability law was published by News Public Trust in September 2026, and his opinion writing has been submitted to Forbes.

As Youth Adviser to the UN Country Team, Manyon brings the lived experience of blind Liberians — through war, Ebola, and COVID-19 — directly into the United Nations' work in Liberia. His message to young people: "Disability is never the barrier. Society is the barrier."

About the Christian Association of the Blind (CAB), Liberia

Founded in 1985, the Christian Association of the Blind (CAB), Liberia is an institution of blind persons serving blind and partially sighted Liberians through education, rehabilitation, advocacy, and empowerment programs. Website: http://www.cabliberia.org

Media contact: Elijah Manyon, National Secretary General, CAB Liberia. Follow: LinkedIn — Elijah G. Manyon | X — @ElijahManyon