Like every other country on earth, Liberia is attempting to move on from the ravages of COVID and start to live a more normal life. We recognise these challenges in the UK and they are magnified hugely in Liberia.

Despite this, our team in Liberia, are ever positive and we hope these few details help all of our supporters and sponsors get a flavour for how your support is transforming lives in the country.

By taking part in our Sponsor Programme, attending events, buying a Sean Devereux hoody or making a donation you are enabling hundreds of children to benefit from education in Liberia; many would not do so without this support.

New Science Block-Brewerville

Our school in Brewerville now has a brand new science lab pictured here. This is a fantastic achievement and once more shows the school progressing step by step. You are supporting children to attend this school and the educational capabilities and facilities are being improved little by little each year under the head, David Flowers.

The new science lab follows the introduction of Mwabu education tablets (pic shows teachers learning the tech), filling the school library, new school furniture, refurbished toilets and kitchens, support for the sports and pastoral activities, as well as some essential landscaping in day to day improvements in the school environment. All of these improvements are “relative” but none can happen with your sponsorship or support.

VOS & Tappeta

Not all of the students we support attend the school in Brewerville. In addition we support children who attend many other schools in and around Monrovia and this is overseen by our dedicated VOS (volunteers of Sean) team. We also, on an annual donation basis, help with the education of young children in Tappeta, a location that had great meaning for Sean.

The support for those supported by VOS is all about getting children to school and supporting their most basic needs in order to do so. The paragraphs below are directly taken from one of the quarterly reports we receive from our team and highlights very clearly the challenges faced by the children and our team:

We are glad to report that VOS is assisting around 100 students. However, some of them are in serious critical situations that require urgent assistance so their conditions do not deteriorate. The lack of proper medical support is hurting some of them. Students P**** K***** and G**** D****are not well. P**** has a serious eye ailment that is negatively affecting her studies. She told us she has been “struggling” to keep in school. To make matters worse, her mother is not well as well. Mom is confined to a wheelchair at her house also struggling to get food for her daughter to eat. P**** said she can’t easily see on the blackboard as her vision or eyesight is very low. Whenever she strains her eyes to write notes and tests on the board or read at home, her eyes can start itching and later they start to hurt her and her eyes can then turn red. Her mother said P**** eyes started giving problems last year but she (mother) doesn’t have money to take her daughter to the eye clinic.

 According to her school, student G**** D***** was not actively in school the whole of December due to health problems/illness in her foot. G**** foot hurts so much that she can’t walk long distances. Her aunty (mother’s sister) is taking care of her and she lives 30 minutes’ walk from the school. She was taken to the hospital and the doctor said she has cold in her legs. Because of this sickness, she has not been performing well.

 Student G**** S***** is a disability student attending the Liberia School for the Deaf. VOS pays regular visits to him. Due to his physical conduction, he finds it hard fending for himself in various forms (clothing, food, books, notebooks, shoes). He needs provisions to keep him up on campus. The School for the Deaf is a government institution where they reported to us that government support/funding to the insitution is not enough to adequately cater to them. His father died last year and his mother grows backyard gardens for livelihoods.

Despite these very real challenges, 100+ students are in school every day and receiving an education that we hope will transform their lives and those of their families. In the very same report, as an illustration of how this works is this very positive story:

On a brighter note, one of our members, R**** K*****, was awarded a scholarship from the Gbowie Peace Foundation in Liberia to attend any university of her choice for BSc degree. Right now she is a student at the Mother Patern Collage of Health Sciences reading Biology and Chemistry after getting a high school diploma through the efforts of the VOS scholarship network.

And the picture below shows children waiting to join Kindergarten in Tappeta and 3 young VOS students who achieved academic excellence in recent months: the next educated generation being actively supported by the fund.