Opportunities for Education

Education is one of our top priorities at Bless the Children Foundation. We realize that the future of our country and our continent depends on an educated population. Many of these children are happy because they heard that we were interested in building a school in their village. These are all school age kids but most of them do not have the opportunity to enter into school because of the abject and granding poverty they and their parents are experiencing. These people live on subsistance and rotational rice farming year after year. The farming is very labor intensive instead of capital intensive. Much hard work is required in farming but the farmers really reap very little out of the hard work. When the farming season is over, after 7 to 8 months, their food is finished, and have to go eking out their living from other sources.

The only way for these children to escape from such cycle of life is to acquire better education. They cannot acquire the education if they do not have a school to go to. Even after a school is built, they will need the basic educational tools to be retained in school without dropping out of school. They will need pencils, note books, regular textbooks, and clothing for school. Their parents do not have the money to support them in school and purchase their school supplies and other necessities needed to be retained in school.

This means that our job is caught out for us. In order to educate these children, we will need enough money to hire good educators to administer the school. We will need good teachers who have special training to teach primary, kindergarten, elementary and secondary schools. We will need salary support for the teachers. We will need money for the construction of the school building. The chiefdom has already secured some land for this purpose. We need help to hire constructors, builders, etc. After the school is built, we will need school supplies, books, and so many other things we cannot begin to numerate. Much of our needs are budgeted for our donors to see.

The 14-year war that devastated Liberia left the country in total ruin. Many of these children do not have parents. A good number of them are orphans, sometimes, being cared for by relatives and other familiy members, or by complete strangers. They will need help.

Since these children do not come from homes where parents have been educated in the Western style of education, some of the parents may not know what it takes for a child to be educated. This means that our work will not only be concentrated at the school, but we will also work with the parents and guardians to instill in them the importance of education and what it takes for a child to be educated.

During school, these children will have to have meal at the beginning of each school day because hungry children find it difficult to acquire or retain information. Therefore, food provision during school will be exceedingly crucial. We will need money to buy food to feed the children daily at school.

The school will also serve as a source for employment for many members of the village. Some women and men will be employed to prepare food for the children. They too will need to be paid. There will be a need for janitors to keep the school environment spic and span. Those individuals will need to be paid. We will need to buy cleaning supplies and equipments as well. The school principal and teachers will need to be paid also. Given the nature of the health situation, we definitely will need a school nurse so that when some of the children become sick while at school, some professional nurse will attend to them. The nurse will also need to be paid.

While at school, the children will need a playground. They will not only need a football field (soccer field), for the little ones, we will need playground equipment such as see-saw, swing, sliding boards and other playground fixtures for them to play in, play on and play with. We will need volley ball and net, basketball and net and pole, etc.

Hopefully, we will find support also through voluntary workers and from parents who will be willing to donate some of their free time to help us at the school. With God’s help and from our donors, the money we need for all this work will be provided. We need to provide these children with the opportunities for education. Can you help us, help our children?