Wednesday Snapshot

The Future looks bright for Liberia, even when the sun isn't shining!  These girls, and their  male peers represent some of the best and brightest.

More Good News

Sometimes change is not so obvious to those who are busy with the day-today work of making that change.  Certainly the evidence of recovery in Liberia is amazing to those of us on the LOEP Team. How gratifying that our continuous chorus of uplifting reports of progress in Liberia are being substantiated by a recent flurry of similar reports in the media.
Liberia is making a remarkable recovery because of people like those we work with in the schools and others like those featured in this story (link).  For every one of the hard-working, determined Liberians we hear and read about and for each of those we know personally, there are many thousands more.  Check out this report of  success in Liberia!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-weiss/the-real-story-in-liberia_1_b_1539745.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

Shipments and Workshops

 Littlest LOEP volunteer, Andrew, inspects the mobile classroom before shipping.

 Supplies for establishing learning centers and Guided Reading programs are packed in this year's mobile classroom shipment.

Three mobile classrooms delivered to the shipping agent today!  Chock full of classroom supplies, learning centers, fun stuff thanks to donations from LOEP friends and the packing and painting skills of Browntown Church ladies!  A training workshop in a box was also sent for specialized training scheduled in August for LOEP Trainer of Teachers (ToTs) at Lott Carey Mission School.

LOEP Team members Phylis Benner and Beth Iden will follow up the mobile classroom shipment with a trip to Lott Carey Mission School in August.  Phylis, a child development specialist and an experienced trainer of adults, developed the first LOEP training workshop and has closely monitored the progress of LOEP Trainers of Teachers (ToTs) since she conducted the first LOEP workshop in 2009. Phylis returns in August to spend a week with the ToTs helping them build their skills as trainers and evaluators.  She will also teach them how to facilitate workshops using professional development resources such as those available from online sources.

The LOEP Team will visit partner schools at CRM, AAMOM, New Life and Hope for the Deaf School during the very busy week in August in Liberia.  Stay tuned for all the news!  

Conference Sponsor Opportunity

Remember last December when the LOEP training team went to Liberia for the First Teacher Training Network Conference?  Read about it here:

http://loeporphans.blogspot.com/2011/11/first-teacher-network-conference.html

  

As soon as the December conference ended our Liberian colleagues were talking about the next one.  We started planning for the next Winter, 2012 Teacher Training Network Conference right then and plans are coming together.  


One of the 2012 Conference topics will address meeting special needs in the classroom. This is a brand new challenge for Liberian educators because children with special needs have not generally been included in the general school population.  New laws and Liberian Ministry Of Education standards for education are changing, however, and Liberian schools and teachers must adapt.  The Teacher Training Network will provide a forum for teachers from more than 10 schools to study new requirements for meeting special needs and help them learn to adapt and make changes in classroom instruction methods. 


Plans for the Conference include presentations by officials of Liberia's Ministry of Education and  policy makers who influence education policy in Liberia.  Stay tuned for some exciting details.

LOEP is seeking a major corporate/organization Sponsor for the Conference.  Companies or organizations interested in sponsorship can contact LOEP directly through the LOEP website or through the LOEP Facebook page. 

More to come...        

Liberia Today - Brenda Bush

Brenda Bush has been an active and valuable LOEP volunteer board member from the beginning.  She was on the first board of directors, a member of the first LOEP Training Team and, like other LOEP volunteers, has recruited her family to join us in our efforts in Liberia - more about her daughter Archel in later posts.  

Brenda is Liberian and fled the war as a young woman with her family.  Her story is hers to tell and, at the same time, it is the story of so many of our Liberian friends.  She is a voice for that story and as a producer for CNN she has a unique opportunity to tell it.  Please check out these links for her interesting views of Liberia as it is today!

 http://backstory.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/12/healing-after-liberias-civil-war/?iref=allsearch

http://newsroom.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/12/hope-and-optimism-evident-in-liberia/?iref=allsearch

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2012/04/21/nr-bush-liberia-chimp-island.cnn?iref=allsearch

http://newsroom.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/26/charles-taylor-guilty-of-war-crimes/?iref=allsearch