By Yvonne Capehart | Project Leader, Co-Director WE-CARE Foundation
Liberia, with a low literacy rate and a large number of out of school children, is struggling to strengthen its quality of education. Presently, the early childhood education level is the least prioritized, and the focus on nurturing care is high on the agenda, working with children from 0-3 years as reflected in the strategies plan for early childhood development. However, with the evidence that the formative years are the most crucial years of growth and development of a child that is going to assume the leadership of the nation in the future, a concerted effort must be made to educate the Liberian children through every process possible. FLI intervention is an intergenerational home-based approach to literacy for school readiness. The program provides the necessary instructional materials and most interestingly the skills and confidence parents need to be their child/children first teacher. Presently, the program as developed in its fifth year, working with 180 families with in four communities in Monsterrado and Margibi County, respectively. The program carried out its regular activities but also included a students’ writing corner, worked fifteen minutes with both parent and child together, and carried out the necessary measures to prevent COVID-19.
WE-CARE/FLI/HIPPY Family Literacy Initiative program has come to the end of their fifth year within the four communities, located in Montserado and Margibi Counties: Caldwell, Duazon, West Point and Neezoe. The initial families recruited in the program were 187 families and 189 children, the program has successfully ended year five with 180 families and 182 children within the four communities. Considering the four communities, (57) fifty -seven children had completed year three and graduated from the program and are ready for kindergarten and lower primary. FLI experiences over the years enabled proper implementation of year five with much flexibility and measure enabling us to meet our goals, lessons learned, and challenges.
Closing program
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the FLI program had to be extended to the end of January 2021 to accommodate make-up days for families, internal ten-week weekly and Bracken assessments, collection of final pulls out pages, and completion of all the FLI children practice activities. The program completed all its closing ceremonies by the end of January, thus allowing all goals to be met. The closing programs were conducted in the four FLI communities, West Point, Neezoe, Caldwell and Duazon respectively. Fifty- seven (57) children successfully completed 90 weeks family Literacy home-based curriculum and skills activities as graduates and for others it was the moving forward to the next level. In Year 5, 182 children and 180 parents ended the program. 57 children graduated from the program while 127 children were promoted to level two (Age 4) and level three (Age 5)
The closing programs were conducted in a sequence starting with West Point, on January 24,2021 and was followed by Neezoe on January 29, 2021, Caldwell and Duazon were conducted on January 30th and 31st 2021, respectively. Certificates of participation were presented. In attendance were parents, children, Coordinators, home visitors, stake holders and community residents.
Preparation, training enrollment, and assessment are underway now to begin Year 6 Family Literacy programming in the four communities. One-on-one sessions with the home visitors visits are scheduled to begin at the start of March.
With the dollars raised from GlobalGiving and Friends of Liberia, WE-CARE Foundation’s Family Literacy program will continue. We still have a way to go to reach our financial goal and continue to look for grant funds and individual donations. This important program is making a difference in the lives of Liberian families and students. Thank you for your support.
Direct Beneficiaries of the Family Literacy Program Year 5
Total: 180 Parents 182 Children
Children by year in Family Literacy
Total: 180 Parents 182 Children
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
