Provide menstrual products to 66 girls in Liberia

Your support has meant a lot to us as we navigate these unusual times. However, we remain unwavering in our quest to ensure a peaceful, reconciled, and transformed Africa. Since our previous report, the Foundation has continued to provide holistic support to its students. To address the schooling gap, we designed a 4-week Scholar Enrichment Program that offered our high school students academic support. The program has its focus on Math and English tutoring while also providing psychosocial support and personal development training to our scholars. We brought on our university scholars to serve as a tutor in this makeshift program. The program was an overall success.

While academic and personal development was crucial during the period under review, social and economic challenges also persisted in our students' lives. To help ease the pandemic's financial burden, we provided food supplies and stipends to our scholars and their families. A majority of our scholars depend on the Foundation for social support. As such, we continued to cover rent and health insurance fees for our underprivileged students. 

Times have progressed as Liberians continue to combat the spread of COVID-19 effectively. The Liberian Government has ordered a reopening of schools.  Many of our scholars are now gearing up for that return. At GPFA, we strive to ensure that schooling during a pandemic does not pose any impediments in our students' journey. This is why we are providing a stimulus package to help facilitate a smooth return. 

This package includes assorted food items, including Liberia's staple rice and vegetable oil, notebooks, and classroom accessories, as well as toiletries inclusive of sanitary pads and tampons. We also provided a monthly stipend and ordered health care check-ups to ensure they are healthy and ready for this new semester. 

We have provided funds to subsidize their internet packages for students enroll in online classes. Our students are also mandated to participate in monthly scholars gathering with GPFA's President/Founder, Madam Leymah Gbowee. This check-up will assess students' mental and physiological well-being as they school amid a pandemic. To ensure less anxiety among students, they have 24-hour access to our nurses and doctors. 

We will continue to supply food items and toiletries to our students for the remainder of the school year. Thank you for your support as we continue to provide for the needs of our students. 

Background

Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa (GPFA) Scholarship Program provides full scholarships to qualified women, girls, and boys to attend colleges and universities within and outside Liberia, with demonstrable needs for navigating the bureaucratic and financial hurdles that are often barriers to enrollment. In addition to paying tuition, we provide health benefits, leadership and development opportunities, and psycho-social support to our beneficiaries. 

 Ninety percent of our student population is female, especially girls from underprivileged backgrounds. These girls come to GPFA with little to no social and economic support. As such, we pride ourselves on rendering holistic support and tangible resources to eliminate socioeconomic barriers to education. Period Poverty is a notorious distraction to girls’ education. To ensure that our female beneficiaries do not witness any disruption of their studies, all 66 of our female students have access to menstrual hygiene products, as most of them reside on-campus.

While arranging to provide menstrual products to our students, Coronavirus interrupted and escalated the need to undertake a grassroots approach to cater for the needs of our students. This included direct aid in feeding supplies and emergency stipend to lessen the strain of Coronavirus on their families as many Liberian breadwinners are condemned to stay home due to lockdown restrictions.

Emergency Feeding

In the past three months, 66 of our female students received bags of rice, gallons of oil, packages of soap, and pieces of deodorants. Hygiene products such as buckets, sanitizers, and nose masks were also given to students to ensure their safety.  

Student Enrichment Program

As an organization that believes in and places a huge emphasis on the importance of education, we have designed a makeshift tutoring program that provides academic support to our students while they await the resumption of school.  In addition to educational tutoring sessions for Math, English, Science, Social Studies, and ICT (Information & Communications Technology), 15 students in 5th to 11th grades are also partaking in etiquette & ethics training where they learn about mannerism, personal hygiene, diction improvements and more. Students also have access to food while they participate in tutoring sessions.