Friends Of Liberia Inc

The Family Literacy Initiative (FLI) This year was the 9th year of the Family Literacy Initiative (FLI). WE-CARE, FOL, and HIPPY International launched the FLI in November 2015 after a survey by FOL members indicated that the most significant unmet educational need in Liberia was early childhood education. More specifically, the preparation of preschoolers in literacy and other basic skills needed to thrive in school. The FLI is a partnership between FOL, the WE-CARE Foundation, and HIPPY International. The FLI has two components: the HIPPY Home Visitors program and the Adult Literacy Program (ALP). The HIPPY Home Visitors program uses the HIPPY curriculum to provide parents with training, educational activity packets, and other resources to help improve their childs literacy and readiness for school. The training and resources are delivered through home visitors, which WE-CARE employs. The ALP is a series of literacy classes using a curriculum designed to supplement the HIPPY curriculum for those parents and other adults who want to improve their literacy as they help their children improve their readiness for school. Now, the ALP has also served a number of adults who are not an FLI caregiver. Miriam Westheimer of HIPPY International continues to provide resources and technical support as needed. WE-CARE serves as the on-the-ground implementer and facilitator, adapting the HIPPY curriculum to a Liberian context, training and coordinating the home visitors, and overseeing the program. In December 2024, year 8 FLI came to a close and the closing ceremonies for the HIPPY Home Visitors program and for ALP were held in December. The HIPPY Home Visitors Program HIPPY is an international early childhood development program grounded in the belief that learning begins at home and parents can play a critical role as educational partners with schools. It is widely known that children are more successful when parents are engaged in their learning. HIPPY is designed to help parents prepare their preschool children for success in school and life and to equip parents with the tools, skills, and confidence they need to support their childrens learning at home successfully. The Friends of Liberia Education Committees dedicated monitoring and evaluation team has been working on expanding our previous report tracking the graduates from the HIPPY program. For year 9 of the HIPPY Home Visitors Program, 274 families started the program, and 259 families completed the program. As a whole, the FLI continues to have a very high student retention rate. This year, 53 children graduated from year 3, and the graduation proceedings were held in early December. WE-CARE continued the program in West Point, Cadwell, Duazon, Neezoe, and Nyemah Town. In 2022, Nyemah Town was slightly delayed compared to the other communities. This year, they were on track with the other communities. Comic Relief continued to fund the FLI this year but delivered some unfortunate news. Comic Relief lost a major funder and, as a result, has to cut the value of their grants by about 50% across the board for 2024. This means that the FLI will have to operate at a reduced capacity unless additional funding is found. In better news WE-CARE worked with a filmmaker this year to create a short 15-minute documentary on the HIPPY Home Visitors program to spotlight it. Early Childhood Development (ECD) Centers Early Childhood Development (ECD) Centers WE-CAREs solution for lack of space in Nyemah Town developed by converting unused classroom space into an ECD center in one community while the community built a space in another. Both of those spaces were finished 2023 and their operation as ECD Centers. In 2024, both Centers completed their first school year. This has particularly benefitted the ALP classes and Friend of Liberia provided some additional funding for the purchase of a lighting system so the spaces can be used after dark. ALP The ALP is a series of group meetings designed to help HIPPY parents improve their English literacy and numeracy skills. The ALP curriculum is designed to work with the HIPPY curriculum, but the classes are not exclusive to HIPPY parents, though HIPPY parents are given priority in the program. There are two levels of the ALP. Level one is for parents who have very little literacy skills, while level two is designed as a continuation of level one and is designed for parents who already have some basic literacy skills. The curriculum writer and the ALP coordinator, James Cooper, are still actively developing the Level Two curriculum. One of the major challenges this year was attendance. Attendance, particularly with the ALP classes, was lower than desired due to the ALP learners involvement with the Presidential election held in Liberia this year. Even with the challenges the ALP was successful this year with 76 level 1 learners and 33 level two leaners completing the program. The graduation programs for ALP were held in each community in early December. Tracking Study WE-CARE and the Education Committees Monitoring and Evaluation group have been working on expanding the cohorts tracked in the tracking study. Cohort 1 students graduated from FLI/HIPPY in December 2018. Data was collected on these students academic performance during the 2022/2023 academic year. A total of twenty-five different teachers and twenty-eight schools were involved in the study. A total of 47 students were in this cohort and 62% (29 of 47) of them were enrolled in schools and were tracked. Preliminary results show that students attended school regularly, and that 20.6% were absent for just one or two days the entire year. By the end of the year, most students were promoted to the next grade, 83% (24 of 29) and 17% (5 of 29) being retained. This year, the FLI tracking study continued. The goal of this study is to gather data about how the students who have graduated from the HIPPY program are doing in school and compare them with peers in the same classes. These results will be included in a final report, which will provide a detailed analysis of the academic progress and behavior of Cohort 1 students. Publications In 2022, the Education committee submitted a proposal to write a chapter for a UNECSO publication that will focus on early childhood literacy programs worldwide. The proposal was accepted, and this year, the finalized chapter was given to UNESCO for publication in 2025. The Education Committee also submitted a proposal and was accepted to write an article for the COABE Adult Literacy Journal. This was published in 2024. Peter Town Unfortunately, in 2022, the ongoing work in Peter Town came to a standstill due to unforeseen issues with WE-CARE continuing to work in the town. This was beyond WE-CAREs and the committees control. In 2024, the committee and WE-CARE found a solution with training teachers at the Garden School in Gbanga. The Garden School has been completing on going training with the Peter Town teachers in Gbanga. Funding Issues WE-CARE is struggling to find funding to continue the HIPPY and FLI programs. They have requested additional funding for the upcoming year 2025.

In 2024 Friends of Liberia Small Grants Committee received 74 applications for funding. Of these, 13 had applied for a Friends of Liberia (FOL) small grant before, and 5 had been previous recipients of funding. 61 applications were from new applicants, indicating knowledge of FOLs small grants opportunity is becoming more widespread across Liberia. This also allows us to build a larger network of local Liberian organizations. The average project cost was $2,766, with an average of 476 expected beneficiaries per project. Project proposals spanned topics such as construction projects for health centers to tree planting campaigns. Many training programs, including women and girls empowerment, vocational trainings and entrepreneurship were proposed. In quarter 1 FOL funded a project proposed by Educated West Point (EWP) called Early Childhood Development and Afterschool Extended Learning. The specific programmatic objective is to strengthen and grow the Early Childhood Development Center and After School Extended Learning program to provide education and updated materials for a greater number of children of West Point. This will be achieved by the refurbishment of the ECD center and Afterschool Program Classrooms to secure adequate space for a healthy, hygienic learning environment. As EWP continues to keep pace, as well as set tone, for the advancement of modern learning in a challenging slum like setting such as West Point, Digital Learning remains in the forefront of EWPs focus in the coming years. As such, visual learning will be integrated via the use of educational digital media, projected on screen with materials recommended through the Ministry of Education and other internationally recognized daycare-aged childrens education materials i.e. Jolly Phonics. In quarter 3 FOL funded a project proposed by Kpoma Women called Womens Rice Mill Project. Kpoma Women requested a $3,000 grant from Friends of Liberia to support the installation of a mechanized rice mill, construction of a small storage facility and basic training in business development to benefit a womens farming cooperative and their families in a very remote village within the Salala District in Bong County. Kpoma Women was founded in 2020 by Constance Mulbah who was born in Liberia and relocated to the United States during the civil war. Constance holds a bachelors degree in public health and became a Peace Corps Volunteer working on development in Senegal (RPVC Senegal 2015). After completing her MBA in Sustainable Business Development,she partnered with Chelsea Johnson, who has strong ties to rural communities in Bong County from her work completing her nursing education. Since 2020, Kpoma Women has focused on empowering rural women in Bong County through grassroots initiatives. Over the past four years, Kpoma Womens all-volunteer organization has focused on supporting rural women and has helped implement grassroots initiatives by collaborating with local communities and other nonprofit organizations. Kpoma Womens purpose is to provide rural women in Bong County with the tools they need to overcome barriers to economic participation. They believe that promoting womens economic empowerment is a key to eradicating poverty. They work on the grassroots level to engage with local women and help them to implement projects that they believe will have the most impact on their communities. It is crucial that Kpoma Women are not imposing their ideas but working collaboratively and listening carefully to the voices of women in the communities they serve. In this way, they have been able to develop successful projects. In quarter 4, FOL funded a project proposed by Help a Mother and Newborn Initiative (HMNI) called Empowerher Journey. HMNI works to support pregnant women and young mothers in Margibi County. Through their programs, they provide healthcare education, maternity support, and financial skills training. The EmpowerHer Journey project focuses on helping 100 first-time young mothers by giving them the skills and resources (through skill training and Seed-Funding for business) to support themselves and their babies. This project also encourages these young women to continue their education and become more self-reliant, breaking the cycle of poverty and improving their future. The total cost of the project is $11,000. We are requesting $3,000 from Friends of Liberia (FOL) to cover the cost of training materials. The training will be fully conducted by ForlifeZoe. While Help a Mother and Newborn Initiative team has extensive expertise in health-related programs, including running support clubs for pregnant women and mothers over the past three years, our focus has been on providing birth kits and prenatal and postnatal education. However, through HMNIs interactions and feedback from these mothers, they realized the critical need to incorporate an empowerment aspect such as vocational training to equip mothers with income-generating skills. For this new cohort (which is a pilot program), HMNI is working with the ForlifeZoe team due to their experience in delivering vocational training for the empowerment aspect. Based on their regular training, they estimated the cost of training materials to be approximately $50 per participant. The rest of the funding will come from local donations, community fundraising events, and in-kind contributions. To ensure the projects sustainability, we plan to involve community leaders and ensure that these women are actively involved, and they use the money for the right purpose.