African Literacy Campaign -- New Phase 2023

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 in the house.

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, related this to me at a 2005 youth human rights conference. 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 Ghana, 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? – I heard myself say, “Yes.”

B. The Road So Far

Now in our 18th 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 by the establishment of national and regional literacy education teacher training centers.

The initiative continues with our return to Liberia and Ghana March 23 – April 3, 2023:

● to advance our collaboration since 2006 with the Global Cares Mission Academy – a remarkable school and orphanage that arose from the ashes of the Liberian civil war;

● to deliver yet more introductory seminars and workshops to educators and policymakers, and

● to further extend our coalition building critical to establishment of a permanent Applied Scholastics teacher training and learning center to serve Liberia and the greater West African 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 pandemic, 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 youth of the region 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. 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 two trips in 2022, we continued our successful coalition building and, in October-November:

• In Liberia, we delivered at Cuttington University’s main campus a two-day, highly praised Study Technology seminar and workshop to some 80 professors and instructors; and

• In Ghana, we delivered in Accra and in Central Region similar seminars to policymakers and educators with equally positive results.

Among so many, one teacher wrote:

“What I have gained from this workshop is so amazing and overwhelming to express. I have learned to become a better, caring and loving professional. Knowing what you have been doing incorrectly and thinking you have been doing the right thing all along enables me to be the change in my classroom and in my life from this point forward.

“Thank you for the time and effort. I am pledging my allegiance to a whole new method in teaching that will enable my students to become better citizens.”

MBD

C. Our Ends 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 in a few weeks – from March 23 and over the next ten days – we return to continue the work, including:

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• In Liberia, collaboration with our long-term colleague Mother Florence and her Global Cares Mission Academy to create a literacy education training center open to all as well as further association with Cuttington and other stakeholders to advance competency-based learning; and

• In Ghana, further planning and delivery with the Ghana Education Service to the same ends.

Only through an effective literacy education movement -- equipping the emerging generations with competent, courageous leadership -- can West Africa emerge from the wars, exploitations 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 U.S.A.

March 1, 2023