African Literacy Pilot Phase Three
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A. Our Vital Initiative Now Goes Immediately to Phase Three, Sustained Delivery:
Thanks to the donations of hundreds of supporters, we have just completed Phase Two of our African Literacy initiative , two remarkable weeks of partnership building on the ground in Liberia, West Africa (January 4 – 18, 2017). It was the most productive and inspiring time I have experienced in over a decade of working in that country and region.
Along with remarkable support we again obtained from numerous Liberian leaders, this recent Phase Two included literacy education sessions to thirteen 10th, 11th and 12 grade classrooms, a total of 600 students. As a result, we obtained written commitments from two Monrovia-area high schools to work with Applied Scholastics International (APS) intensively.
Thus we embark immediately on our most ambitious step yet, a “Phase Three” pilot to introduce workable literacy education tools to teachers and students in those two schools over their second semester, starting the week of February 6, 2017 and extending four months to June, 2017.
Then, beginning July 5, we partner with AME University in Monrovia to train faculty and incoming freshmen on Study Tech over four weeks to early August. This is our launching pad to establish a permanent Liberian teacher training center by year’s end.
We are not just aiming to assist the teachers, instructors and professors to increase their effectiveness and students to increase their learning proficiency, things APS has achieved consistently around the world. By enabling participating educators and youth to work for full comprehension, application and competency, we hope to inspire youth to reach for the responsibility and leadership necessary to raise up a country that has been saddled for decades with stunning illiteracy and seemingly dent-proof poverty.
B. Why Liberia?
Liberia, located on the Atlantic Coast of Africa, is not a tourist destination. Among the poorest – and some would say most exploited – countries on the planet, it has struggled to crawl back from 14 years of civil wars (1989 – 2003) that destroyed the education system. This is a region notorious for child soldiers, kids as young as 7 or 8 years old reduced to mindless killing machines as graphically portrayed in the motion picture Beasts of No Nation (2015).
To halt this insanity, 15,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops occupied Liberia for most of the past decade during which its exiled former president was convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for war crimes. With neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea, Liberia also shared the agony of a near-two year Ebola outbreak, infecting over 28,000, killing over 11,000, and again shutting down the nation’s schools.
Yet, Liberians are above all else survivors. While tribal, religious and political factionalism may be as endemic as Ebola now apparently is, such divisions – like the disease – are essentially background noise to a national determination to never go back to the dark days of genocide.
The tough and resilent people of this country know first-hand that none of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration’s 30 human rights can be established without making actual education possible. True education is not rote learning for the next test. Rather, true education equips students with competency and ability to apply what they have studied. Human rights calamities continue to be the reality of this world largely out of the illiteracy of those exploited or impacted.
C. Actions
These humanitarian disasters must be a wake-up call to all but those terminally deaf and blind to the world’s sufferings. Effective action is not a luxury here. It is required.
I am Pasadena, California lawyer. Along with many courageous and inspired West African youth leaders, I created the African Human Rights Leadership Campaign (Campaign) for Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI) in 2006, since that time activating thousands of youth of the region as human rights educators, teaching by example and deed. See our short film below.
Please help us continue to build the Campaign’s decade-plus of work by making possible this next critical step in West Africa over the coming five months: February through June, 2017.
This Phase Three is our continuing collaboration with Applied Scholastics International , an organization uniquely qualified to offer the solution to illiteracy through the proven effective learning methods of American author and innovator L. Ron Hubbard , widely known as “Study Technology ” or “Study Tech. ”
With your help:
1. February, 2017 Training of Teachers and Students: We will return to Monrovia, February 6 through March 1 to deliver a series of training and apprenticeship sessions, including: a) three day teacher training courses and follow-up consultation apprenticing in each of the two partner schools; and c) Study Tech theory and application training delivery to 10th, 11th and 12th grade classrooms in each school; and
2. March – June, 2017, Delivery Monitoring and Assistance: Over the ensuing four months of the semester, we will regularly monitor and oversee Study Tech application in the participating classrooms of the two schools.
3. July - August, 2017: Pilot Delivery with AME University: This next collaboration marks a very important advancement for the project. After more than a year of introductory seminars and workshop delivery, we will now begin much more substantive classroom instruction with AME U instructors and students.
On an intensive schedule over the university's four week "vacation bridge" summer program, we will deliver two major APS components: (a) increasing student duplication and understanding of materials studied through demonstration; and (b) establishing conceptual understanding of the fundamentals of the English language, the gateway to vocabulary improvement and to confident, competent use of the language both written and verbal.
By these actions, we are working to demonstrate the workability of APS ’s vital literacy education tools, thus creating the demand for long-range collaboration and implementation through established educational institutions in the region.
D. The Dream
Building on our successful actions in Liberia over this past year, this Phase Three pilot is the vital next step in bringing our dream into reality, the creation of sustainable, long-range delivery of Study Tech-based literacy education teacher and student training throughout Liberia, Sierra Leone and the region, including establishment of national and regional literacy education training centers.
Thank you so much for your support.
Tim Bowles
Pasadena, California
Volunteer
Youth for Human Rights International
Thanks to the donations of hundreds of supporters, we have just completed Phase Two of our African Literacy initiative , two remarkable weeks of partnership building on the ground in Liberia, West Africa (January 4 – 18, 2017). It was the most productive and inspiring time I have experienced in over a decade of working in that country and region.
Along with remarkable support we again obtained from numerous Liberian leaders, this recent Phase Two included literacy education sessions to thirteen 10th, 11th and 12 grade classrooms, a total of 600 students. As a result, we obtained written commitments from two Monrovia-area high schools to work with Applied Scholastics International (APS) intensively.
Thus we embark immediately on our most ambitious step yet, a “Phase Three” pilot to introduce workable literacy education tools to teachers and students in those two schools over their second semester, starting the week of February 6, 2017 and extending four months to June, 2017.
Then, beginning July 5, we partner with AME University in Monrovia to train faculty and incoming freshmen on Study Tech over four weeks to early August. This is our launching pad to establish a permanent Liberian teacher training center by year’s end.
We are not just aiming to assist the teachers, instructors and professors to increase their effectiveness and students to increase their learning proficiency, things APS has achieved consistently around the world. By enabling participating educators and youth to work for full comprehension, application and competency, we hope to inspire youth to reach for the responsibility and leadership necessary to raise up a country that has been saddled for decades with stunning illiteracy and seemingly dent-proof poverty.
B. Why Liberia?
Liberia, located on the Atlantic Coast of Africa, is not a tourist destination. Among the poorest – and some would say most exploited – countries on the planet, it has struggled to crawl back from 14 years of civil wars (1989 – 2003) that destroyed the education system. This is a region notorious for child soldiers, kids as young as 7 or 8 years old reduced to mindless killing machines as graphically portrayed in the motion picture Beasts of No Nation (2015).
To halt this insanity, 15,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops occupied Liberia for most of the past decade during which its exiled former president was convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for war crimes. With neighboring Sierra Leone and Guinea, Liberia also shared the agony of a near-two year Ebola outbreak, infecting over 28,000, killing over 11,000, and again shutting down the nation’s schools.
Yet, Liberians are above all else survivors. While tribal, religious and political factionalism may be as endemic as Ebola now apparently is, such divisions – like the disease – are essentially background noise to a national determination to never go back to the dark days of genocide.
The tough and resilent people of this country know first-hand that none of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration’s 30 human rights can be established without making actual education possible. True education is not rote learning for the next test. Rather, true education equips students with competency and ability to apply what they have studied. Human rights calamities continue to be the reality of this world largely out of the illiteracy of those exploited or impacted.
C. Actions
These humanitarian disasters must be a wake-up call to all but those terminally deaf and blind to the world’s sufferings. Effective action is not a luxury here. It is required.
I am Pasadena, California lawyer. Along with many courageous and inspired West African youth leaders, I created the African Human Rights Leadership Campaign (Campaign) for Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI) in 2006, since that time activating thousands of youth of the region as human rights educators, teaching by example and deed. See our short film below.
Please help us continue to build the Campaign’s decade-plus of work by making possible this next critical step in West Africa over the coming five months: February through June, 2017.
This Phase Three is our continuing collaboration with Applied Scholastics International , an organization uniquely qualified to offer the solution to illiteracy through the proven effective learning methods of American author and innovator L. Ron Hubbard , widely known as “Study Technology ” or “Study Tech. ”
With your help:
1. February, 2017 Training of Teachers and Students: We will return to Monrovia, February 6 through March 1 to deliver a series of training and apprenticeship sessions, including: a) three day teacher training courses and follow-up consultation apprenticing in each of the two partner schools; and c) Study Tech theory and application training delivery to 10th, 11th and 12th grade classrooms in each school; and
2. March – June, 2017, Delivery Monitoring and Assistance: Over the ensuing four months of the semester, we will regularly monitor and oversee Study Tech application in the participating classrooms of the two schools.
3. July - August, 2017: Pilot Delivery with AME University: This next collaboration marks a very important advancement for the project. After more than a year of introductory seminars and workshop delivery, we will now begin much more substantive classroom instruction with AME U instructors and students.
On an intensive schedule over the university's four week "vacation bridge" summer program, we will deliver two major APS components: (a) increasing student duplication and understanding of materials studied through demonstration; and (b) establishing conceptual understanding of the fundamentals of the English language, the gateway to vocabulary improvement and to confident, competent use of the language both written and verbal.
By these actions, we are working to demonstrate the workability of APS ’s vital literacy education tools, thus creating the demand for long-range collaboration and implementation through established educational institutions in the region.
D. The Dream
Building on our successful actions in Liberia over this past year, this Phase Three pilot is the vital next step in bringing our dream into reality, the creation of sustainable, long-range delivery of Study Tech-based literacy education teacher and student training throughout Liberia, Sierra Leone and the region, including establishment of national and regional literacy education training centers.
Thank you so much for your support.
Tim Bowles
Pasadena, California
Volunteer
Youth for Human Rights International
Organizer
Tim Bowles
Organizer
Pasadena, CA