Adult & Family Literacy in Liberia 2024 -2025

Family Literacy Initiative Report To GlobalGiving Covering the Period November 2024 – February 2025 

     One of the key challenges for underdeveloped countries like Liberia that is struggling with inequality and the ability to take advantage of opportunities, is poor educational outcomes. Family Literacy Initiative (FLI), a HIPPY homebased early childhood education program with parents serving as the teachers of their children, is addressing this intergenerational problem from the home by improving the educational outcomes of children and providing parent and child with the critical skills and confidence they will need to succeed.

     We extend our thanks to GlobalGiving and all our generous donors for their support to low-income families, with out -of- school children ages 3 -5 living in Liberia.

     We are please to report that FLI year nine closing program was held in each of the five communities of West Point, Caldwell,   Duazon, Neezoe and Nyemah Town. The program’s 223 children (105 males and 118 females) and their parents demonstrated literacy, numeracy and other school readiness skills during the indoor program. The audiences were amazed to see mothers who could not read a year ago, reading and interacting with their children. Attending the program in each community, included district education officers from the Ministry of Education, Community leaders, women, religious and youth leaders. They were overwhelmed and every speaker emphasized the need for the FLI program to be scaleup so that other families living in underprivileged communities might benefit from this life changing program.

Challenges

      Major challenges in FLI year nine implementations included the difficulties for some families to leave their petty trading or farms to attend adult literacy classes at the designated time and, the deplorable road conditions during the rainy season in rural and swampy communities. Most times when the roads were flooded, the program staff were unable to reach some areas like the rural community of Gankalashue. The program’s management team mitigated these challenges by using regular phone calls and text messages to adult learners on class days, visited and role played with parents on their farms and at their trading areas. More than 75% of the program beneficiaries (parents) are single parents surviving on petty trading in urban communities and farming/gardening in the rural areas.

HIPPY Conference

     A representative from WE-CARE Foundation attended the HIPPY Conference of Directors in Vancouver, Canada. A presentation was made on the FLI/HIPPY program’s activities and outcomes. Directors of HIPPY programs from seven other countries made presentation on their respective programs. What stood out during the conference was the level of evidence that has been collected on the positive results of the HIPPY program. Also, like FLI, all the countries have done adaptions to the HIPPY program to suit their respective country contexts. What was sad was that all the programs are receiving funding from their governments except Chile and Liberia. However, for Liberia, early childhood education home visiting program is included in the Ministry of Education Section Plan.

Preparation for FLI/HIPPY Year Ten

     FLI in its tenth year of implementation, is continuing to work in the same five communities, but has expanded to new neighborhoods. FLI will be working with 245 families with 245 children ages 3 to 5. The total direct beneficiaries for year ten are 490 parents and children. Activities completed in preparation for year ten work in the communities include:

1. Verification of 133 families that participated in FLI year nine as first and second year participants that will be participating this year as second- and third-year participants.
2. Recruited 112 new families with 112 children (age 3) to participate as Year 1 families. These families will be studying the year one curriculum of the program.
3. Recruited 100 Adult Learners (46 are FLI families that are illiterate and 54 are community members that have enrolled to improve their literacy skills).
4. The Bracken School Readiness Assessment was administered to the 112 new children to be used as a baseline before home instructions.

FLI Staff

     The FLI program activities for year ten will be implemented by 36 trained staff that include 3 coordinators, 5 supervisors/home visitors, 21 home visitors, 6 adult literacy teachers and a material production person. For a better educated workforce, six home visitors and two ALP teachers are enrolled in college studying for their bachelor’s degree in early childhood and primary education.

Commendation

     WE-CARE Foundation, Friends of Liberia, HIPPY International and all the families that are participating in the Family Literacy Initiative program, would like to extend their thanks and appreciation to all the contributors. Your donations are helping to improve lives by making a parent and child become literate and prepare for school and in the long-term contributors to national development. You are giving a brighter future to families in Liberia.

Family Litercacy Initiative (FLI) a homebased early childhood education program with parents serving as the teachers of their children completed its nineth years with increase results on children school readiness. We extend our thanks to GlobalGiving and all our generous donors for their support to low-income families with out of school children ages 3 -5 years old living in Liberia.

We are please to report that FLI completed year nine with a total of 223 children (105 males and 118 females). Ninety (90) of the children have completed the three-year curriculum of the program. Closing programs are being held in the five communities of West Point, Caldwell, Duazon, Neezoe and Nyemah Town that are implementing the FLI program. The need for this program to be continued cannot be overemphasized. It is giving families living in extreme poverty the opportunity to change the future of their children.

 Increase in Age-appropriate Enrollment

There was an increase in the rate of enrollment of FLI children in formal school from 60% in 2023/2024 academic year to 78% in 2024/2025 academic year. The number of FLI children enrolled in their appropriate age class has also increased by 40.8%. This can be partly contributed to the increase in writing activities added to the required skills and concepts that children are expected to develop for promotion to primary grade one in Liberia.  The parents participating in FLI said the program is helping them to take a more active role in their children’s education. Parents are engaging with the schools and with the teachers on the learning outcomes of their children. We are pleased that parents are taking the initiative and are getting involved with the schools. We hope that in the coming program year, we can have greater parent engagement with the schools.

 Adapted HIPPY Curriculum

The 3-year HIPPY curriculum contextualized for Liberia was used for the home instruction along with Liberian books. It was observed that parents and children had increase verbal discussions and interaction with the Liberian books. About 94.5% of the parents reported that the content of the books was easy to follow, and they had more things to talk to their children about because there are many things in the books that they can see around them. There is a need to include more Liberian books in the program.

 Evidence of the Program Success

The FLI program has tracked four cohorts of graduates from the program in formal school. The first graduates of the program in 2018 are now in grades ranging from 4^th to 9^th grade.

Adult Literacy

The adult literacy component of the FLI program completed the year with 98 adult learners.

There are about 70% of the learners who are impressively responding to text messages from the ALP teachers and are reading at third and fourth grade levels, while the other 30% of the learners are struggling to read between kindergarten and first grade levels. With solar light provided by Friends of Liberia, the ALP classes in Marchee Town, one of the rural towns were conducted in the evenings when the people came home from their farms. Some learners reported that they are helping their older children with their schoolwork.  While others claimed that they are helping their neighbor’s children with their schoolwork.

An adult learner was promoted to 5^th grade in formal school. The teachers are praising his ability. This year is his second year attending regular school. ALP was his first school ever, and last year his first time ever sitting in a formal school classroom. We observed that younger adult learners are willing to go back to school.

 Early Childhood Development (ECD) Centers

 Early Childhood Development (ECD) Centers constructed by self-help from community dwellers in two of the towns that have no school within 45 minutes walking distance to the nearest school have opened for the 2024/2025 academic year. There are 115 students ranging from nursery to kindergarten in the two rural towns participating in FLI under the rural community Nyemah Town. FLI Home Visitors are serving as the ECD teachers.

 The challenge of access to primary school for the children to continue their education in these two towns remain the same. We are continuing our discussion with the Ministry of Education to assign a grade one teacher at the Marchee Town school for the academic 2024/25 year. A trained teacher is paid US$100.00 to USD$150.00 per month in Liberia.

 This year we had unimaginable support from the community taskforce. The volunteer taskforce supported the program through continuous motivation of families, participating in all the program activities and creating awareness of the program in community and town hall meetings. We appreciate their efforts.

WE-CARE Foundation, Friends of Liberia, HIPPY International and all the families that are participating in the Family Literacy Initiative program would like to extend their thanks and appreciation to all the contributors. Your donations are helping a parent and child become literate and prepare for school and success for life-long learning. Please consider a donation today.

• Final FLI HIPPY Report Phase 3 Cohort 1 July 2024 (PDF)
  
• Final Liberia HIPPY At-A-Glance May 2024 (PDF)