Provide a quality education for girls in Liberia

Germinating Every Mind-Liberia's (GEM) and the Jennifer Albee Enrichment School extend their profound gratitude to GlobalGiving and all our generous donors for their continuous support to the girls of Liberia. GEM is pleased to present its quarterly report as part of GEM’s commitment to our GlobalGiving donors. This period's report covers from May 28 to September 22, 2024.

This new academic year marks the 5th academic year of the school’s operation since it was founded in 2020. A mixed emotions of success and challenges have propelled us into a new beginning with different shades of colors of brightness to step into the future. 

Huge Milestones
1. The Jennifer Albee Enrichment School concluded its fourth academic year with a total of 110 girls, 86 of whom performed exceptionally well in all divisions. As part of the closing exercise every school year, we celebrate students moving to the next academic division with a graduation exercise. This year a total of five kindergarteners will move on to the elementary class and six 6th graders will move on to the middle school class.

2. We have moved to a bigger and better facility

While we pursue our longer term goal to construct our own school campus, we were able to acquire a bigger and better facility to serve the growing needs and demand of our students and parents. Functioning in an urban community with competitive schools in the same environment, the need for a modern or bigger facility cannot be overlooked. While we have relocated, we are still within the same larger community, a 25 cents transportation fare from where we previously operated. With the proper renovations and upgrades on the newly acquired building, this new structure houses all of our classes from ECD through middle school classes within the building. At the previous location, the majority of the classrooms were in a tin-roof structure made of cement and bamboo. It was impossible to secure the building from theft and bad weather. The new location has improved the security of our furniture and supplies, and increased the durability too. Wonderful!

It’s unimaginable how much support we've gotten from the new community. There has been a huge turnout of volunteers during our outreach and awareness time. Also, the community leaders, especially the Youth Chairperson, Community Co-Chairperson, elders and a former Representative Aspirant have given us incredible support and motivation to continue doing what we do for girls. Our new School Administrator is a long-time serving principal of many schools located in our new community who resigned from his last job to come and commit to the work we do. Awesome!

3. More staff gain scholarly training

After many efforts to strengthen our human resource capacities, our School Administrator, Mr. Jonathan A. Earley was awarded a scholarship from the Kigali University in Rwanda to study Finance and Business Administration. He has departed and is expected to be back by the end of next year. Also, our Founder and Executive Director, Mrs. Davidetta Togba Cassell secured a two-year scholarship from USAID to study Education. She is currently enrolled at Liberia’s most prestigious teachers’ college ‘LICOSESS College of Education, studying Primary Education. Congratulations to both of them!

4. Girls-Speaker raised!

In Africa and Liberia, children public speakers, and particularly girls, are the rarest of things you will see. However, we have broken the ceiling with our strong emphasis in Literacy and are producing high-quality motivational speakers. After introducing our guest speaker, former Miss Liberia, Madam Bendu Parker-Weeks-Lewis, at our last graduation ceremony, one of our trained student speakers, Henrietta, was invited to serve as guest speaker at a Children’s Day Program at My God is Able Church. Henrietta amazed the audience with her skills! In total we can boast of raising 10 public speakers at the school.

5. Academic year 2024/2025 has commenced! 

On September 16, 2024, the new academic year commenced with 37 girls completing their registration process. From the look of things, nationally,  many children are likely to register very late into the first term due to high economic instability. Some may not enroll at all this academic year. This national crisis, combined with the challenge of establishing ourselves in the school’s new location, is impacting enrollment at Jennifer Albee Enrichment School. Our short-term goal is to raise enrollment for this academic year to a minimum of 75 girls. Our strategy is to give out 50 scholarships to needy girls for more kids to have access this year while raising more awareness about the school. We are also focused on obtaining a 16 seater bus for the students’ transportation to and from school. This will help boost and maintain enrollment once parents feel confident they can trust the safety of their children traveling to and from school.

Longer-term Goals:

We are poised to begin senior high school activities next year and are eager to commence. Within the next two to three years, our plan is to begin the gradual process of constructing our main campus along the new Johnsonville-White Plain Road.
 
Conclusion

Thanks, thanks and more thanks is all that we can say. To God who has granted us the will to do what we are doing and to all of our donors who have been a part of the impartations, thanks. We would not have reached this far without your drop of love and care. Like the song USA for Africa says, “We are the ones to make a brighter day, so let’s start giving.” You are saving a nation from poverty to sustainability through your support for girls’ education. “Oh send them your heart so they know that someone cares.” You all have sent us more than your hearts. Thanks for all the care you have shown the girls and people of Liberia. All of that can only happen through the support of our wonderful donors. For that, we again close on a note of gratitude to everyone who has sent in their resources to reach our project to the level we are at. Thanks to GlobalGiving for affording us the space for such wonderful fundraising opportunity.

Germinating Every Mind-Liberia (GEM-Liberia) and the Jennifer Albee Enrichment School extend their profound gratitude to GlobalGiving and all our generous donors for their continuous support to the girls of Liberia.

GEM- Liberia is pleased to present its quarterly report. The periodic report is part of the GEM-Liberia's commitment to GlobalGiving and our donors. This period's report covers from February 2024 to May 2024. As we come to the conclusion of the fourth academic year, GEM-Liberia and the school are proud to share with you our achievements and experiences.

Huge Milestones
Visit from Our Eponym and Board Member, Ms. Jennifer Albee, and Her Sister, Christine Purka!
The week of April 22 to 26 was a special time for the Jennifer Albee Enrichment School as two of our GlobalGiving monthly donors flew from the United States to Liberia to pay a visit to the school for the first time. The girls were so excited to receive their visitors that they began preparing weeks in advance with speeches, dances, and handmade gifts to show off their skills.

The guests spent time with the students in the classroom and watched our committed teachers in action. The teachers can’t wait to use the donated instructional materials and laptop they brought to enhance the educational experience for the girls!

The guests also took advantage of the opportunity to hold a board meeting in person and meet members of the Parent Teacher Association and the community. The guests were excited to see the future site of the Jennifer Albee Enrichment School in Monrovia White Plain. The land was purchased several months ago thanks to our generous GlobalGiving donors and will provide a much needed permanent location for the school.

Official School Ceremony
Even though we are completing our fourth academic year, we never held an official ceremony to launch the school in the community. On April 24, 2024, we were able to celebrate with Ms. Jennifer Albee serving as the guest of honor. In her speech, Ms. Albee encouraged the girls to take advantage of the resources available to them and thanked the teachers for committing to such important work. Ms. Albee presented awards to each teacher and board member and thanked them for their dedicated service to the school. She wore clothes made by the girls for the special occasion.

The school and the guests enjoyed every moment of the visit. We are hoping for more opportunities to meet with more of our donors and have them see the work and progress their contributions have helped the girls achieve.

Clearing of the Future Site of Jennifer Albee Enrichment School (JAES)
The two-lot plot of land was cleared in preparation for the commencement of the school’s construction project. We are currently looking for grants to support the construction of the school but in the meantime, it is critical to clear the land and protect it from being illegally resold to another buyer.

Senior High Registration Accepted!
We are thrilled to announce that after three successive academic years in the primary and junior high divisions, and at the conclusion of our fourth year, the government of Liberia has granted us a full secondary school registration. This is a boost for the school to roll over into senior high division once our students matriculate from middle school. The school was commenced at elementary status with 25 girls in 2020. To obtain the approval for secondary status took us great commitment to our work and the support of our donors and friends.

Short Term Goal
Our short term goal is to raise enrollment from 110 students to minimum 160 students for the next academic year by creating more awareness about the school. We are also focused on beginning the gradual process of our main campus construction. ConclusionWe anticipate bigger achievements in the coming few years. All of that can only happen through the support of our wonderful donors. For that, we again close on a note of gratitude to everyone who has placed in their resources to reach our project to the level we are at. Thanks to GlobalGiving for affording us the space for such wonderful fundraising opportunity.

With gratitude,

Davidetta Togba Cassell
Executive Director & Project Lead