IBIS in Liberia

Foto: Hanne Selnæs

Four years after the civil war in Liberia, IBIS continues to work with the people of Maryland, Grand Kru and River Gee Counties to rebuild the lives of children and youth towards sustainable future development of Liberia. The programme that IBIS works within in Liberia is called Accelerated Learning Programme (ALP).

Accelerated Learning Programme
This programme provides children with access to quick but quality free primary education in a mere 3 years. The children and youth benefiting from the programme are being prepared to enter secondary school upon successful completion with the necessary skills to function positively in society. Also ALP offers training opportunities for officials of Ministry of Education particularly at county and district levels while trainers and teachers teaching in the ALP classes also receive training on child-centered supervision, participatory approaches and upgrading of skills in ALP concepts and methodologies.

The situation in Liberia
Following 14 years of civil war, Liberia is now one of the few places in the world, where children are less educated than their parents. Presently, the conflict has internally displaced over 300,000 whiles other 300,000 Liberians with various skills and capacities are refugees in neighbouring countries. UN led post conflict National Human Development Report issued in August 2006, indicated that massive brain drain caused by the conflict has led to the shortage of the necessary human capacity and basic skills to support the reconstruction and development.

It is estimated that 50% of the population in Liberia is less than 18 years and most of them have never been to school, - they have been fighting most of their lives, and the only skill and experience they have is using a gun.

Now peace has been restored in Liberia and a democratically elected government is in place, but the capacity to mobilize human resource to run public institutions, such as schools remains a big challenge as Liberia appears to be recovering from its long crisis. The task to pick up a generation of war traumatized children is colossal.

This makes education in emergencies very crucial for sustaining peace and stability in the country as it does not only provide the tools for protecting children but also vital for the reconstruction of individual and family lives towards sustainable development and peace building.