African Literacy Campaign 2021 and Beyond

A.     The Situation:

Now in our 16th year of collaboration and despite all barriers -- the global pandemic being only the latest -- we core members of the African Literacy Campaign rededicate ourselves to creating and sustaining our Study-Tech based literacy initiative throughout Liberia and Sierra Leone through the establishment of national and regional literacy education teacher training centers.  

Reaffirmation starts with the return of our U.S. team in July, 2021 to continue the training, workshops and coalition building critical to long-range viability and success.

Over recent decades, West Africa has been one of the most challenging regions of the planet.

Illiteracy fueled the hatred, fear, and bloodthirsty revenge that marked Liberia’s coup d’etat in 1979-80 , its 14 years of genocidal civil war between 1989 – 2003 and the 11 years of similarly savage conflict in neighboring Sierra Leone (1991 – 2002) .  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). 

As the region struggled to recover from these insane slaughters, Ebola  hit and ran largely out of control, for most of 2014 and into 2015, with more than 22,400 cases and more than 8,900 deaths to the disease.  Among other devastating effects, the disease forced the indefinite closure of Liberia’s schools, nationwide, for the better part of a year. 

The Ebola disaster spilled out into the West in late 2014, with two persons dying of the disease in the U.S., accompanied by media hysteria and growing public panic.

As horrible as that was for West Africa, it was a relative ripple alongside the COVID-19 pandemic, in effect cutting off nations from nations and continents from continents and disrupting yet again the ability of nations such as Liberia and Sierra Leone from orderly education of its young populations.

The struggles of such countries are stark demonstration of illiteracy as the most destructive human rights violation.  It makes violations of the remainder of the 30 articles of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)  possible. 

B.     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 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. 

Now focusing wholly on Article 26 of the UDHR, we have partnered since 2016 with Applied Scholastics International (APS) , 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.” 

Before the pandemic closed in, we had continued our decade-plus of work in 2019:

● In Liberia, including:

● teacher and student training in provincial capitals Kakata and Tubmanburg;

● third year running with the  ongoing third summers with African Methodist Episcopal (AME) University's Vacation Bridge program in Monrovia; and

●  partnership commitments obtained with top government policy makers, including ● Prof. Ansu D. Sonii, Sr, Liberian Minister of Education; ● Hon. Alexander N. Duopu, Deputy Minister for Instruction, Liberian Ministry of Education (MOE); ● Hon. Latim De-Thong, Deputy Minister for Administration, MOE; ● Her Excellency Jewel Howard-Taylor, Vice President of the Republic of Liberia; and

● In Sierra Leone, including:

● teacher and student training in the capital of Freetown and nearby Wellington; and

●  partnership commitments obtained with top government policy makers, including ● Tommy Massaquoi, personal assistant to His Excellency Rtd. Brig. Gen Julius Maada Bio, President of the Republic of Sierra Leone; ● Emily Hadiatu Gogra, Deputy Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, Ministry of Education, Science & Technology (MEST); ● Alhaji Mohamed Kamara, Ph.D., Chief Education Officer, Ministry of Education, Science & Technology; ● Staneala M. Beckley, Ph.D, Chairperson, Teaching Service Commission Sierra Leone; and ● Phylis Kapu, personal assistant to Her Excellency, Mrs. Fatima Bio, First Lady of the Republic of Sierra Leone.

Despite curtailed capacity in 2020, we have kept the flame alive with on-the-ground and on-line educator training in anticipation of renewed, full campaign actions. 

Our 2021 phase is to accomplish the next critical steps in building a sustainable initiative to provide true competency based education in one of the most challenging regions of our world today.  Please help us build on well over a decade of work by making possible our next series of delivery and coalition-building actions in Liberia and Sierra Leone, West Africa over two-plus weeks July 3 - 19, 2021.  

With your help, we will:

• Run multiple Study Tech-based teacher/youth community leader “train the trainers” workshops in rural centers of Liberia and Sierra Leone as well as the respective capitals of Monrovia and Freetown;

• Introduce Study Tech to government administrations and civil society leaders. With the administrations of Hon. George Weah in Liberia and Julius Maada Bio in Sierra Leone – each outspokenly dedicated to finding solutions to failed educational systems -- we will to create the lines and commitments necessary to build long-term, sustainable literacy education through these countries and region;

• Create the foundation for sustainable nation- and region-wide teacher training and student learning centers for the same purpose;

C.  The Dream

Only through an effective literacy education movement -- equipping the emerging generations with competent, courageous leadership -- can West Africa emerge from the wars, corruptions and other disasters that have plagued the region for too long.  We aim to contribute in ways that can make a true difference toward this worthy and vital end.

Thank you so much for your support.  

Tim Bowles
Pasadena, California

Director for International Development
Applied Scholastics International

June 6, 2021