African Literacy Campaign - 2025

First the dream, hard work to follow.

On my first contact with young West Africans -- July, 2005 in Ghana -- with their passionate optimism despite overwhelming illiteracy borne of a brutal, very recent past, I had the notion that, just maybe, we might work together to make a difference.

Suddenly, it’s 20 years later, with tens-of-thousands inspired by our persistence and good work, fueled through the GoFundMe-funneled generosity of many hundreds of supporters.

Yet, this is only prologue. Our challenge is no longer how to introduce the region’s educators in L. Ron Hubbard’s Study Technology, proven effective, competency-based learning. The task now is to create the capacity to meet the exploding demand for such training. For instance, through the several workshops conducted in Central Region over the last 24 months, the Ghana Education Service regional director has called for Study Tech instruction to all 22,000 teachers under his administration.

And so it goes. Last February and March, Applied Scholastics master trainer Dr. Olatunde Odewumi certified the first ten Ghanaian educators as Study Tech instructors. Starting in April, they embarked in turn on training the first several hundred teachers in the Central Region.

This February, Dr. Odewumi returns to the region from Nigeria, this time to train and certify an initial 25 top Liberian educators as Study Tech instructors, with aim transform education in that country from a rote exercise to learning for comprehension and competence.

Thus, with increasing orders of magnitude, we work to answer the regional director's call. And thus, once again, we must generate the funds necessary to make the impossible possible, an educational renaissance in countries that very recently, by the weight of poverty, corruption, and war, were seemingly going down for the last time.

To those who have helped get us to this new threshold – and to all who will pitch in now – thank you.

A. Beginnings

Joseph Yarsiah, living in Liberia’s capital Monrovia in 1989, was a little kid eagerly looking forward to Christmas. Months earlier, fighters led by a Charles Taylor had crossed over from Ivory Coast to challenge the government’s authority. Stories were that Taylor had the magic, so superhuman he was able to bathe in boiling water, impervious to bullets for having eaten the hearts of his enemies. Yet, all that seemed far away, “up country,” not his family’s concern.

Then, one early morning that December, the pop, whistle and slap of gunfire reached Jay’s neighborhood. After weeks in the cross-fire, his dad announced they were going to take their chances on the road to Sierra Leone rather than be picked off one-at-a-time where they stood.

No-one should ever have to endure what Jay and family experienced in the next several days, largely walking the 50 miles to the border only to be confronted at the last checkpoint by a 14-year- old commander, in charge by being a stone-cold killer. It was eight-year-old Jay who begged him for his remaining family’s lives.

Jay, by now 25, shared this with me at a 2005 youth human rights conference in Ghana. Fully ignorant of the Liberian genocide and the 2003 U.N. occupation that ended it, I had volunteered to coach young delegates on public speaking, one week in Africa, a few souvenir pics, and out. Yet on the last day, Jay asked me a question: Would I help him? While the idea was outlandish. How is one (older) guy from L.A. and one (much younger) survivor of the killing fields going to make any difference?” Then, I heard myself say, “Yes.”

B. The Road So Far

Now in our 20th year of collaboration and despite all barriers (the global pandemic being only the latest), we core members continue to work to make human rights – through the right to meaningful education – a fact in West Africa. We thus devote our African Literacy Campaign to creating and sustaining a Study-Tech based literacy initiative throughout region.

Over recent decades, West Africa has been one of the most challenging regions of the planet: Bloody civil wars notorious for child soldiers, endemic poverty, entrenched corruption.

Then came the horrors of Ebola (2014-2016), a relative ripple alongside the COVID-19 chaos, cutting off communities from communities 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.

Jay and I started in 2006 with the African Human Rights Leadership Campaign for Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI), since that time activating thousands of youths as human rights educators, teaching by example and deed.

In August, 2013 came news that every one of the 17,000 high school graduates applying to the University of Liberia had flunked the entrance exam. Explanation: a newly appointed minister had changed the grading from a bell curve to a 70% proficiency standard. … and not a one passed. Result: greater powers promptly sacked the minister.

We thus came to recognize West Africa’s struggles over recent decades -- bloody civil wars notorious for child soldiers, endemic poverty, entrenched corruption -- are stark demonstration of illiteracy as the most destructive human rights violation.

Thus, with Ebola’s passing in 2016 we have focused wholly on Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (education), partnering 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.”

Over the four most recent trips, in 2022/2024, we continued our successful coalition building and delivery, including:

● In Liberia, highly praised two-day Study Technology seminars and workshops ● to some 80 professors and instructors at Cuttington University’s main Suakoko campus; ● to another 60-plus faculty at Cuttington’s Schools of Graduate and Professional Studies in Monrovia; and ● to some 30 youth and community leaders from the Federation of Liberian Youth (FLY) and affiliated organizations; and

● In Ghana, a like series of seminars to hundreds of secondary and primary educators in multiple districts of the Ghana Education Service, Central Region.

Among so many, one instructor wrote:

“This has been an amazing experience. My teaching abilities have been enhanced many fold and my passion for nurturing young minds ignited. The lesson planning and learning barriers material signal profound changes in my classroom dynamics.

“Our facilitators exuded warmth and enthusiasm. The interactive process was exceptional.

“I will certainly practice what I’ve gleaned. My teaching philosophy, I believe, has been transformed.

“I remain committed to my journey of growth and learning, both personally and for the young minds I am privileged to guide.”

CA

C. Our Ends, Plans and the Dream

Are these challenges -- illiteracy, poverty, corruption, injustice -- insurmountable? The real question was and is whether one is willing to fulfill the first prerequisite no matter the odds: To show up.

Thus, over the coming months, we return to continue the work, including:

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● Over two weeks beginning February 3, Dr. Odewumi will intensively train the first 25 top Liberian educators to become certified Study Tech instructors;

● Beginning in March, those certified instructors will deliver Study Tech essentials, including lesson planning, to the next several hundred Liberian primary and secondary teachers, with successively greater training volumes to follow;

● Continue oversight and assistance to the certified Ghanaian Study Tech instructors to nationwide expansion of their parallel teacher training initiative; and

● Through supporting Ghanaian opinion leaders and the new presidential administration in Liberia, continue to extend our coalition building critical to advancing competency-based learning throughout the region.

Only by an effective literacy education movement -- equipping the emerging generations with competent, courageous leadership -- can West Africa emerge from the wars, exploitation and other disasters that have plagued the region for too long. At greater and greater scales, we continue 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

Clearwater, Florida U.S.A.

January 23, 2024