ALEXANDRIA, Ind.--When Lucretia Goe fled her Liberian home during a civil war in 1991, she never imagined going back. She and her husband, Daniel, and two young children had a harrowing escape, lived in a refugee camp for more than a year and arrived in the United States with fear and loss etched deeply in their hearts.
But these days Mrs. Goe is all smiles, precisely because she is
going home, after nine years, and she's bringing a part of her new
Indiana life with her. The Anderson Community Schools reading teacher will spend July in
Suaccoco, Liberia, teaching Liberian primary school teachers some new skills.
"This is like a dream come true for me," says
Mrs. Goe. "All during the war at home, I wondered how my former coworkers were
surviving with barely enough food and certainly no school supplies. Now I can go back with
something to share that will make their lives better." She is part of a program
called Liberian Education Assistance Project (LEAP).
Six U.S. teachers will work with 15 teacher teams from schools in central Liberia. The
workshop site is Mrs. Goe's alma mater.
Mrs. Goe, who now lives in Alexandria, is a graduate of Cuttington
University College and she spent a decade teaching fourth-grade at the International
School on the campus. Her children, Yidi and Tophlay, were born at the small hospital
nearby. Daniel Goe worked for almost 10 years as deputy director of the Peace Corps
program in Liberia. In fact, several of her partners on the teacher training project
worked as Peace Corps Volunteers in Liberia during the '60s and '70s. They are specialists
in math, science, music and early childhood education who began their careers in Liberian
classrooms.
Before the civil war, which began in 1990, Liberia had one of the
highest literacy rates in West Africa. But in seven years of brutal
warfare, many children never had the opportunity to go to school. In the absence of
government, teachers were not paid. Community schools struggled to stay open but had no
means to replace materials after the looting that accompanied the skirmishing of a
half-dozen warring factions. Children as young as 10 were drafted to fight.
The LEAP program, funded by private grants and donations, was
developed by Friends of Liberia, a non-profit organization started by
former Peace Corps Volunteers in 1986. During the war, the group sent relief, kept members
informed about the latest news in that country and became involved in peace negotiations.
Mrs. Goe and her fellow teachers hope to make the teachers
workshop an annual event in Liberia. Their goal is to develop a corps of Liberian teacher
trainers who will become a conduit for the best
practices of teachers around the world. Mrs. Goe explains LEAP's purpose this way:
"Those who build schools and send materials are making a valuable contribution. But
if you develop a teacher's skills, you are guaranteeing that the quality of the education
in that new school will prepare children for productive lives."
| "It's a huge job bringing Liberia back to the country it was," says Mrs. Goe. "But we have to start somewhere and I can think of no better place than the schools." |