2023 Trip to Liberia - Day 4
It was an early start today, which meant sleep more and grab a granola bar for the car ride. Sam did what he could to get us to the other side of town to pick up Pastor Sylvester and head to Mary’s Meals, a nonprofit from Scotland with school feeding programs in 18 countries. We learned from Paula Nawrocki, Country Director, and Lusungu Ngulube, Program director, that Mary’s Meals in Liberia has quite an operation with 40 vehicles, 90 motor bikes 68 full time staff and engages 3,000 volunteer cooks and uses SalesForce to collect and analyze data from the schools they serve. Mary’s Meals programs serve over 150,000 students each day in Liberia and 2.5 million total meals each day worldwide. After an introductory meeting at a field office, we visited Rosa’s school, which has over 700 students. We observed the preparation, serving as well as the detailed record keeping in action.
We returned to The Light of the World Academy with the staff of Mary's Meals for a tour, they were impressed with the building and particularly interested in the O'Donnell computer resource center where the older students were working on laps tops connected to the local server via WiFi. The system is especially well suited for operation in Liberia because it operates the full day on batteries, is completely wireless, and the local server is loaded with Wikipedia and Liberia-specific learning curriculum so an internet connection is not needed.
Next the student 'Press Club' -- older students and their teacher -- interviewed each of us on video, asking insightful questions about what we thought of Liberia and our visit. The highlight of the day was an afternoon presentation developed as a thank you for our visit. Students selected from every grade had clearly worked on their presentations a great deal, and over 1.5 hours we and the entire school, the teachers and some parents watched and listened to an incredible program.
We learned of the importance of Early Childhood Education from a local childhood expert in kindergarten.
We had a report from the school press club and a lecture about computers from two of the older students.
We saw a ballet dance by a Kindergartener (she learned from watching ballet on a cell phone)
The Culture Club did a series of several folk dances that included singing by the students and drumming by the culture instructor. All ages were involved. The effort and dances were really fabulous.
And finally received blessings and multiple thank you's from Pastor Sylvester, students, and the principal representing the teaching staff.
Don gave a lovely response to the crowd and thanked Pastor Sylvester for his leadership, thanked the students and staff for an inspiring, wonderful afternoon. The effusive thank you’s from everyone we have met on this trip have been so heartfelt and a bit overwhelming, as the planning and hard work by Pastor Sylvester and his team is truly what has made the difference in these childrens' lives.
Robin