ELWA Academy

Now we take a break from our usual updates to bring you a series of blogs on the ministries of ELWA. As the title says, we'll Start with the ELWA Academy.

ELWA Academy started out as a school for missionary kids in 1957. It was one of the larger MK schools in West Africa. The school enrollment quickly dwindled during the early years of the civil war and the school was closed in 1996.

The Academy reopened as a school for Liberian children in 2003. They have been adding additional grades every year and have classes through the 8th grade now with over 530 STUDENTS total. There is no free public school system in Liberia, so families have to pay to send their kids to the Academy. The Academy tries to keep their fees low, to keep the tuition affordable, but a semester is still equivalent to 1 month+ salary.

So with that in mind, I sat down with the principal, Benedict Nagbe, today to see where we could help. Here's what I found...

Recreation is a real problem. As you can see they have many many kids who use their very limited playground equipment. They have a huge need for both new playground equipment and athletic gear. Footballs (soccer to us Americans), kickballs and basketballs are needed. They are also trying to purchase jerseys for football teams they would like to form. Another need is toys or equipment to play with inside during the rainy season...

Here is the Academy's computer lab. The students are very eager to learn how to use computers. Out of the computers in this picture, only the one on the left works. 530 students and one computer...not good.

So here's what we are thinking. I would like two volunteers to coordinate collection efforts:

1. One person to coordinate the collection of athletic equipment.

2. One person to coordinate the collection of computers and accessories.

I know before we moved we had a couple of old computers in the garage. They still worked, but we had purchased newer faster machines and had no use for them. If we had a volunteer that could collect computers and ship them to Tennessee to Service to Servants, and same for the athletic supplies, we can get them to the Academy. We'd like to try to have these supplies ready for school next year (September). Please let me know if you'd be interested in helping with either of these efforts...don't make me beg.