African Girls Leadership Initiative

GPFA is excited about  being able to continue to make learning happen at all levels during even trying times.  The Gbowee Peace Foundation has been able to stay true to a mantra of educating wonderful girls and giving them the opportunity of a life time, with support from wonderful donors like you. To date, our international students have all fitted into life on campus at their various schools in the US. Yvonne’s happily making new friends at Cedar Crest College whilst working to acquire her first degree in Social Work; Delight’s getting into the work force at Eastern Mennonite University and Anita’s assimilating into college life at Barnard; Delight and Anita both are our grantees from Ghana.  Georgia, who’s enrolled at the Clinton School of Public Service, studying for her master’s - is making strides at the University of Arkansas. With your help, we were able to get these students ready to take advantage of the wonderful opportunities afforded them through these scholarships.

The rest of our AGLI grantees have been out of school due to the outbreak of the deadly EBOLA Virus Disease (EVD) that has killed so many people in Liberia since February 2014 to present. Being innovative, GPFA espoused the idea of getting our students safe, whilst getting them trained to take part in the Foundation’s Ebola Outreach Initiative.  With that in mind, a one day EBOLA Outreach Awareness training with 9 of our Scholarship recipients from different Universities. These scholars were trained via our partnership with the Ministry of Health and Social Work, by Registered Nurse Gloria Wayne – Davis.  At the end of the training, they were set to go out in their various communities, do awareness on how to prevent oneself from acquiring the EBOLA disease; they were also tasked with carrying out a survey of health facilities that are having medical supplies to protect themselves when attending to sick patients.  Our Grantees who got trained came from five of our partner Tertiary Institutions, namely Starz College of Technology, Tubman University, African Methodist Episcopal Zion University, Smythe Institute and e University of Liberia

Ebola Prevention Community Outreach by GPFA Scholarship Recipients

Through the support of you all our GlobalGiving donors, GPFA was able to provide small grants to Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and Media Institutions in Local and Rural communities. Four of our scholarship recipients, Becky, Vaiba, Gwendolyn and Grace are actually the leaders of four of the CBOs and they have been very active in helping to kick EBOLA out of Liberia.  GPFA’s Scholars also did outreach with staff and they conducted a three days EBOLA Outreach Awareness with commercial drivers at public parking stations; they also assisted in educating Motorcyclists plying the targeted routes.  All of this community awareness work was done to help stop the spread of the EBOLA Virus in Liberia. The need for contact tracing, the promotion of the regular washing of hands; Our awareness team made sure to share the Ministry of Health’s preventive measures and to talk about the reintegration of EBOLA survivors in their respective communities.

As we await the re-opening of schools, our GPFA AGLI scholars are actively involved in educating their communities on ways to stop the prevention of the EVD, giving awareness about contact tracing, and striving to carry out validation in their communities.  The Foundation will continue to keep them engaged, innovatively making learning happen at all levels.  GPFA will keep our AGLI Scholarship recipients involved in this fight to eradicate this deadly disease, whilst ensuring that they are themselves following the preventative measures as announced by the World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control and the Liberian Health Ministry, and keeping safe.