Liberia Day 1

Today was our first real day and we began with a briefing from the National Investment Chairman. I mention I had read the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) on the plane. You know how I am such a sucker for a plan. He talked about how after almost 20 years of civil war they were in an emergency recovery modeyears the first few years. The next several years they were in recovery mode and now are trying to transition to development mode. They key to the development is it must be to the benefit of all Liberians and not just an elite few like in the past. He also talked about the need to build a civil society, an informed body with the ability to exercise voice and choice. One who understands the issues and will push back on those that try to undermine the progress.

We then left the enclave of our much too nice resort and immediately outside the gates was an active, but clearly very poor community. We were driven to downtown Monrovia on one of the main roads, so it was actually paved. Today's focus was on education so we met with the Ministry of Education. During the war all the schools, textbooks, and libraries were destroyed. All the teachers and professors fled. They are now rebuilding the public system. Almost no public secondary education is available right now because there are no teachers trained in math and science for this level.

The transparency and willingness to admit to the challenges and short comings by the government was refreshing At the same time they seemed focused and determined to continue to make improvements. Of course I've never met with any other government officials in any other country.

While Monrovia is the capital, just a block or two off the main roads are dirt roads with shacks for housing. Our first on-site stop was a pre-shool through 6th grade program. They kids welcomed us singing. This school has early childhood education because they noticed the kids this age were left wandering while their parents tried to work. They also offer adolescent mothers training and help them get started with a bank account and micro loans. The main school isn't free so we noticed kids, who could not afford the school, hanging on the schoolyard fences.

The next stop was a restaurant and culinary training program run by a Returnee, someone whose family fled during the war, was American educated, and has returned to use their skills to help improve Liberia. There is a rapidly growing hospitality industry in Liberia as hotels are being built to cater to the foreign business interests. None of these hotels employee Liberians at higher levels because they lack the training. Rozi's program provides a skill to the lost generation that didn't get educated because of the war. One of her challenges is the culinary students don't have basic math skills for measuring or food costing and don't have the English skills to read a recipe.

We then went to a technology program which again is trying to help provide job skills to the lost generation. It was based in what is considered on of the most volatile communities in Monrovia. Also founded by a Returnee, he wanted the youth of the war to know they were not forgotten.

Finally, we went to a Montessori teacher training program. When we were first getting briefed by the founder, another Returnee, I thought isn't a Montessori trained teacher icing on the cake? Aren't people just lucky to have a teacher? We then sat in on one of the training session in progress. It was the second training for the group and I literally heard the instructor say, "if a child doesn't know what 2+2 is, you do not beat the child.". She went on the introduce to them the concept of cognitive development. Hands were being raised in question as she tried to explain to the current school teachers what was a completely new concept!

I am here with the Santa Barbara based foundation, Eleos and I have drunken the cool-aid and the Liberian government's cool-aid that the key is development and not aid. To illustrate , I noticed a locked well in the midst of a clearly very poor community. When I asked Andy, the Eleos ED about it, he said it could be privately run. I inquired if he thought a privately run well was exploiting people and he said, if people don't pay for it via taxes or to a private person, then it's aid and that's not a sustainable model for anyone.

Tomorrow we travel 2.5 hours outside of the capital and only see two projects, but visit a local community.