MONROVIA, Montserrado – At the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic, Teach of Liberia’s CEO Desmond Diggs asserted, “Liberian citizens should not have to choose between the certainty of starvation and the possibility of contracting the virus.”
This statement guided TFL’s inaugural cohort of Teacher Fellows as they designed an intervention to provide support and awareness to their placement communities and partners in Montserrado and Bomi.
The fellows, top performing recent university graduates who are placed in rural placements for two years to teach at local schools, sprang into action. Cultivating leadership in the fellows is an ongoing part of the program and this unprecedented threat was an opportunity to evidence said leadership.
The teacher fellows served as an integral part of the thought planning process with the core team to formulate the plan that was shared with partners. An initial US$25,000 was made available thanks to the Cummings Africa Foundation, with the intent of impacting 3,000 citizens.
Since the project’s inception, more than 4,000 students and parents have benefited from food rations, face masks, and awareness materials, in both standard and Liberian English, to reach the most at-risk populations. Additionally, the project extended its impact to local religious communities partnering with both Trinity Episcopal Church’s outreach efforts and Blama See Mosque and Public School during the height of Ramadan celebrations.
Through a partnership with the Health Federation of Liberia, who provided training to TFL staff to guide the safe distribution of materials, an opportunity was identified to support frontline healthcare workers who have been impacted by the pandemic in the course of performing their essential duties of testing and caring for COVID-19 patients.
TFL would like to thank all of its partners who made the distribution a success including the Cummings Africa Foundation, the Ministry of Education, the Government of Liberia, the Health Federation of Liberia, Liberia Initiative For Empowerment, Philimena.com, Williete’s Safe House, LIBDelivery, the Liberian Medical and Dental Association, John F. Kennedy Medical Center, and a host of individual donors who donated supplies and resources.
