Help Liberia Foundation Community School

Help Liberia Foundation Community School, our school helping to educate underprivileged children in the city of Buchanan, has commenced the 2013/2014 school year, with the school distributing clothes and books among the kids on the first day of school.

A child displays his book; others wait for theirs

The start of the new school year, which took place about three weeks ago, brought together old and new students, as well as old and new staff members.

Interestingly, too, in an effort to put smiles on the faces of the children, the school distributed clothes and reading materials among the children. The distribution exercise was spearheaded by Mr. Joseph Goffa, Vice Principal for Student Affairs.

Children listening to Mr. Joseph Goffa, Vice principal for Student affairs

The children, as well as their parents, appreciated the gesture, as some parents visited the campus to thank the school for the first-day-of-school donations. We are praying and hoping that we will have another successful school year.

Although we have already started the new school year, many children are not in school because their parents are unable to register them or pay their tuition. In fact, as a way of helping the kids and their parents, we accepted a lot of the children in the school without them paying any money because we don’t want the kids to sit at home without going to school all because their parents are poor. Notwithstanding this, a lot of them are still sitting at home, unfortunately. At present, there are nearly one hundred students in the school.

Children at school on day one

However, one very serious problem we are facing at the school is getting money to pay the staff every month. This is our main handicap, as we need about US$500 every month for staff salary. If we are able to raise this amount monthly, then we can use the little funds we collect from parents to take care of other expensive.

At this juncture, therefore, we are sending out this SOS call in the form of a public appeal to all goodwill individuals and organizations that may be in the position to help the school pay its staff, as our inability to pay the teachers regularly could cause them to leave the school, thereby placing the kids’ future in jeopardy, which we do not want to see happen.

Please come to our aid.

More pictures from the day – click on any picture to see a slide show.

Yes, it has been a few months since we last posted information about Help Liberia Foundation Community School.  We sincerely apologize for this. There is a contributing factor.

As you may recall, when our guests comprising Elizabeth, Lena, Marianne and  Anders came from Sweden in March to visit the school in Buchanan, they brought us a camera, which is a great relief because we were really in need of one.

Children outside the school

At the 2012/2013 closing and graduation program held in July, scores of great photos – including photos of the graduating kids and their parents, special guests and others – were taken. However, when it came time to download the photos, everything disappeared from the chip, and we have not been able to retrieve any of them. It has been very heart-breaking, as we always like to publish stories with photos.  We have been told about one or two parents whom people saw taking photos of their kids, but we have not been able to locate them. This has been the holdup for not posting new information on this site, but, as indicated earlier, we really regret the situation and sincerely apologize for it

We can assure you that we have put in the right measures to post new information/articles with photos at least once every month from now on.

Grade 2 children in class

In the meantime, kindly permit us to present some updates on activities/happenings at the school.

1.  The school had its eighth closing and graduation program on Sunday, July 7, 2013, in the edifice of the Jubilee Christian Fellowship. Twenty-six (26) kids graduated from the kindergarten, and four (4) kids graduated from the sixth grade. The program was well-attended. The guest speaker, who sent a representative to deliver the speech on her behalf, was Senator Nyonblee Karngar, the newly elected and first female senator of Grand Bassa County. Her speech stressed the importance of education for people coming from poor background. At the end of the speech, she gave scholarship to two (2) students and she pledged twenty (20) bags of cement toward our impending school construction project.

2. The registration process for the 2013/2014 school year has started and school will have opened by the time we post this article. However, most students have not registered, as parents are complaining of not having money to send their children to school.

K-3 children

3. Before the close of school, the World Food Program (WFP) re-started giving food to the school. We hope they will continue to do so regularly in this new school year.

4. The school received one new sponsor who is sponsoring three kids. Her name is Nancy Incoll, and the kids she is sponsoring are Daniel Kennedy, Mardea Smith and Evelyn David. This is good news in that, because of Nancy’s humanitarian gesture, these three kids will go to school to have a better future.

5. We have carried out some changes in the administration of the school. We have Mr. Varney Gibson, Principal; Mr. Jarvis Krangar, Vice Principal for Instructions; Mr. Joseph Goffa, Vice Principal for Student Affairs, and Ms. Annie Dayugar, Registrar. These staff also teach full time in the school.

Children reading donated books

To conclude, permit us to use this time to thank all those who continue to help the school and the children, especially for the past school year. We thank Mary Smith for her continuous involvement in the work in Liberia, especially for coordinating the school’s websites and her great suggestions. She is a true partner.  We want to thank Mr. David Turner for his continuous support to the school and the kids. He is a great philanthropist to the school. We thank Catherine Gill Jamieson for being the Kids’ Soldier out there, fighting for them day and night. We thank all the good people who helped to collect funds last year to pay the school’s lease agreement for five years. Because of their assistance, we can operate the school for five years without worrying about paying rent. We also thank our four guests (Elizabeth, Lena, Marianne and Anders) who visited the school for one week in March and who brought some gifts for the school. Many thanks, also, to all others who directly or indirectly, whether financially or morally, supported the school and the kids during the past year. We appreciate you all and ask that you continue to think about the school and the children attending it. Lest we forget, we express thanks to the staff, parents and students of Help Liberia Foundation Community School for helping to have a successful 2012/2013 school year.

Articles about the re-opening of school will be posted soon.

Until about three months ago, our school used to receive food rations from the World Food Program (WFP), however periodically it occurred. We used to receive burger wheat, oil, beans and salt.

However, since January, we have not received food rations from the organization. In a sense, the children had not been eating, and cooking at the school is one of the things that keeps the children in school.

Kids receiving food

Then when our Swedish guests were about to return to Sweden, Elisabeth Thorne, on behalf of the group, gave the school US$100 to cook for the kids.

The school used the US$100 to cook for the entire school – kids and staff – for one whole week, and everyone had enough to eat every day.  In fact, instead of cooking burger wheat for the kids, the school bought rice – Liberia’s staple food.

Staff members getting food from the cook

We wish to express our profound thanks to Elisabeth and the other visitors for donating the US$100, which fed the entire school for one complete school week.

If any individual or organization out there is willing to help the kids and the staff to eat at school every day, US$100 can do that for a whole week.  Yes, US$100 can feed the students and the staff for a week!

After spending Day One and Day Two at our school in Buchanan, the third and final day of their visit and stay at the school came on Thursday, March 28, 2013.

The day was characterized by mixed feelings – joy and sadness. Joy because it was a day of additional interaction and fun among the students, the staff and the visitors. But the day was also sorrowful because it was the day on which our visitors – Elisabeth, Marianne, Lena and Anders – would be ending their visit and leaving from Buchanan.

Kids excitedly responding to a Swedish play performed by our visitors

“It is sad that we will be leaving you to go back to Sweden. We have had a great time at the school since we came here, and it is sad that we are ending our visit, but we can tell you that we will continue to remember you and interact with you,” our guests indicated.

“We will miss you a lot, too. We have been interacting as if we have known one another for years,” said a female teacher.

Our visitors doing a traditional Swedish play for the school

Anyway, we began the day with a series of activities, affording the school and the visitors to interact more before their departure. Additional games were played, songs were sung, farewell speeches were made, etc.

At the end of the activities mentioned above, the school carried out what is commonly referred to as “gowning” in Liberia. We attired the guests with African clothes – the ladies receiving African dresses, and the man receiving an African shirt.

Nancy, a teacher, gowning Lena

Each speaking after the gowning ceremony, our visitors thanked the school for honoring them in such a way and promised to remain friends of the school. It was a moving moment for each of our visitors, as some almost cried from emotions as they made their remarks after being gowned.

Visitors Given Bassa Names

It is a tradition for Liberians to give Liberian names to their oversea visitors or guests at such an occasion. Therefore, following the gowning ceremony, the school gave Bassa names to our guests, and they are as follows:

1. Elisabeth – Janjay (meaning “goodness” in Bassa)
2. Marianne – Dyujay or Youjay (meaning “for the sake of children” in Bassa)
3. Lena – Ah Deyh (meaning “our mother” in Bassa)
4. Anders – Ah Bah (meaning “our father” in Bassa)

Our guests after the gowning ceremony

We are appreciative of the sacrifices Elisabeth, Lena, Marianne and Anders made to visit the school in Buchanan. Besides the expenses involved, there were other constraints they experienced concerning their trip. We expressed our sincere thanks to them all for making those sacrifices for the school.

Following the gowning ceremony, we entered the school building for a final meeting between the staff of the school and our guests, after which they departed Buchanan for Monrovia, spending about a week in the city before returning to Europe on Sunday, April 7, 2013.

Guests and kids interacting

Our school’s doors are always open to Elisabeth, Lena, Marianne and Anders. Not only that. Our doors are also open to all other individuals who may want to visit or interact with our school.

Pictures from the day are below (click on any picture to see a slideshow).

Wednesday, March 27, 2013, marked the second day of the guests’ visit and stay at the Help Liberia Foundation Community School in Buchanan.

And, like Day One, Day Two was characterized by various activities, some of which are as follows:

Lena and Veronica, a female teacher, playing knock foot

1. We had another interactive session where the staff and the children sang songs, gave recitations, told jokes and our guests also sang, danced and talked to the kids and staff more about Sweden.

2. Our female teachers and students taught the visitors how to play knock foot (a Liberian female game) and other plays.

Elisabeth and a child playing the jump-rope game

3. There were jump-rope mini-competitions in which our visitors, staff and students happily participated, with each trying to prove that they could do the jumping rope for minutes without being entangled by the rope.

4. Lena and her husband (Anders) presented the gifts they brought for the school – football, notebooks, pens, telephones, a camera, some books, etc.

Paul and the students posing with Lena and Anders after receiving the gifts

Of course, we could not just do all those activities without resting to put something in the stomach, so we all ended and went for a dish of palm butter rice, a typical traditional dish.

Watch out for the article and photos for Day Three.

Pictures from the day below (click for larger images).