Children's education in Liberia

Josie Cohen, campaigner for Rewrite the Future, writes about her recent trip to Liberia.

Monday 29 October 2007

Rewrite the Future is the Save the Children campaign that focuses on getting the 39 million children currently missing out on an education because they live in conflict-affected countries back into school.

At the beginning of October, I visited Liberia, one of the twenty Rewrite the Future countries where conflict has played a huge role in stopping children from getting an education.

We landed late on a Monday night into Monrovia's almost pitch black Roberts International Airport. Being my first time in sub-Saharan Africa, I was slightly apprehensive exiting the airport and was relieved to see Save the Children's logo, bobbing above the crowd. We headed towards the sign and found the 4x4 waiting to drive us the one-and-half hours to our apartment in one of the Save the Children compounds in the capital, Monrovia.

School visits

On Wednesday morning the real adventure began as we took a tiny 7-seater plane out to Zwedru, the capital of Grand Gedeh, Liberia's most north-easterly county.

We were to spend five days visiting Save the Children supported schools, talking to teachers and children, as well as running activities as part of a global campaign called Stand Up and Speak Out 2007.

Our first visit was to the JC Barlee School, which is a clear example of the country-wide explosion in enrolment numbers which has been one of the results of free primary education being introduced in Liberia in 2006.

The classrooms were incredibly crowded, containing up to 165 children per class, and there was no space for teachers to move around to interact with students.

I had the opportunity to run an activity with one of the Accelerated Learning Programme (ALP) classes which gives children over school age (often young mothers or children who were displaced by the civil war) a second chance to complete primary school and it was very inspiring to see so many young people embracing this opportunity to go to school.

Isolated communities

The next day we drove for four hours through unbelievable amounts of mud to get to Blown Town School on the border with Cote D'Ivoire, situated in a community so isolated that most aid agencies cease their work in the rainy season.

It was clear to see how much Save the Children's presence meant to the community. The school itself was clean and spacious and Save the Children staff proudly told us that they had recently put a roof and floor on to the building, and were in the process of providing desks and uniforms for all the children. As it was, some children were going to school in their underwear as it was all the clothes they had.

As we arrived in Blown Town all the children came running out of school and McKinley, a Save the Children Child Protection Officer, struck up a fantastic song which they all joined in with enthusiastically. It was wonderful to see the close relationship that many of the Liberian staff have developed with the children they work with.

We also spoke to some of the teachers and I was shocked to discover that, apart from the principal, they all work as volunteers, paid in kind by their communities who work in their fields while they are teaching. This is a common situation in Liberia where very few teachers have managed to get on to the government pay roll and donate their services for free.

After just one hour in Blown Town we turned around for the four hour bumpy journey back to Zwedru and marvelled that many of the Education team in Liberia do this difficult journey at least once a week.

Personal stories

On our final day in Zwedru, we visited Kumah Town Elementary and I was given the opportunity to talk to some young people in the catch up class about their experiences and what motivated them to return to school.

I interviewed four young mothers, who were all forced to leave school when they fell pregnant as young teenagers and now, thanks to the catch up classes, were able to bring their babies to class.

I also spoke to a number of boys who didn't attend school when they were younger, either because they were forced to leave Liberia in the conflict or because they had had to work on their family farm. It was a real honour to hear their personal stories, and truly inspiring to see how determined these young people were to get an education so they could better the lives of themselves and their families, despite the inconceivable hardships that they face every day.

As a campaigner in London, the work can often seem very distant and abstract and this trip opened my eyes to what Rewrite the Future is  achieving every day on the ground. On the one hand it filled me with hope to meet some of the children we are helping and see the amazing dedication of the staff working in the field to improve children's lives. On the other, it showed me just how much still needs to be done in order to Rewrite the Futures of children living in countries affected by conflict.

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