HELP LIBERIA FOUNDATION

Letter From a Liberian School Principal

Posted by Help Liberia Foundation on April 29, 2004

Paul Yeenie Harry
Executive Director
Help Liberia Foundation

Dear Sir:

I greet you in the name of our soon coming King, Jesus Christ.

I wish to register my thanks and appreciation to you for your humanitarian services you are about to render the Liberian people. There is no gift so small to help the people of this nation.

Having gone through your press release, I got interested in your programs. I love working with children. I’m thirty seven(37)years old and a teacher.

The war in Liberia has created a number of problems, particularly with women and children. Not only are there children who have been subjected to the scare of the war, such as the killing of their parents before their eyes, traumatizing them to kill without mercy, and so on.

The war has come and gone, so it is time that we Liberians help in the reconstruction process of our country, by fulfilling the educational, social, and other needs of our people, especially the children who are the future leaders of our country. Many of these war-affected children are without hope for tomorrow, and many roam the streets in search for food to survive for a day, homes to lay their heads and clothes to warm their bodies.

Over the past fourteen years, most of the children have been denied their rights to education. Many have neither acquired their basic primary education nor their secondary education.

Teenage girls have become bread winners for their families. Having unprotected sex; thereby resulting in the increase in the spread of the deadly HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases, which are gradually eating up the human resosurces of our country.

After doing feasibility studies on school-age children, statistics gathered from various communities show that there are more children that are not in school than those in school. The reason is either because one parent (or both parents) is dead or because the parents are unenable to send their children to school.

It is against this background that the school named Restore Future Elementary School (located in the Stephen A. Tolbert Estate) was established to help children get their basic education. The school is tuition-free. Children are only allowed to register, if they can afford. If not, we still accept them.

My house is currently used to run the school in order to assist these children. At the moment, we have one hundred fifty children between the ages of 3-15 attending the school. Majority of these children are wearing color clothes and slippers because they cannot afford to buy uniforms.

The school has been going through some difficult times, especially in getting instructional materials, buying benches for the students and paying salaries.

I invite you to work in partnership with us in our quest to restore the future of these poor and war-affected children.

With the above mentioned, we seek assistance, in any way possible, from your organization. We fervently pray and hope that our request for assistance will meet your approval.

Kindest regards,

Baindu C.N. Taylor
Principal

Our address

Restore Future Elementary School
Stephen A. Tolbert Estate
House #FC 41