Family Literacy Initiative (FLI) in Liberia

Summary

WE-CARE, through its Family Literacy Initiative Program (FLI), is addressing the lack of early childhood education for children from impoverished communities. Children in these communities do not have access to school and often if they do enroll, they are over-aged and lack basic academic skills, which will impact their learning in the long term. The Family Literacy Initiative (FLI) program works to improve the academic success of children 3 to 5 years old, from 230 families in Liberia that live in economic challenged communities: Duazon, Caldwell, WestPoint, Neezoe and Nyema Town by using trained Home Visitors (HV) to build the skills and confidence of parents and caregivers to be their children’s first teachers.

WE-CARE Foundation, along with her partners Friends of Liberia and HIPPY International, are implementing the Family Literacy Initiative (FLI) program with its two components (homebased education of impoverished children and adult literacy for their parents). It is in its seventh year and with major support from COMIC Relief, USA, FLI continues to help parents develop the skills, tools, and confidence, including books and other learning materials, to help them prepare their children for success in school which is in line with one of the RND outcomes of early childhood education. The program is being implemented in Liberia in five low income and low literacy communities (4 urban and 1 rural) in Duazon, Neezoe, Caldwell, West Point & Nyema town.

The goal was to increase the number of families in the program. In 2021, we had 195 families. In the last six months, the project has been engaged with 200 families with 205 children ages 3 to 5, divided between first, second-, and third-year participants in the four urban communities. The program has also extended to a new rural community, Nyemah Town and is working with 30 families with 31 children ages three years participating for the first time in the FLI program. This brings the total number of families to 230 with 236 children. Working with the five communities are 24 trained home visitors that have provided 20 weeks (and 10 in the new community Nyemah town) of instructions to the 230 families in the five communities. The adult literacy component is providing classes to improve the literacy level of 157 adult learners to enable them to teach their children. Getting the increment in the participation in the number of families and children and the incorporation of Nyemah Town into the program and, having the Ministry of Education in its review of the Education Sector Plan (ESP) maintain the Family Literacy Program in its plan for 2021-2026, are two major milestone of the project. This positive output trend will enable FLI to realize its goal of getting impoverished children, who would have had no opportunity to go to school, in first grade by the age six with their parents being directly involved in their education.

There was a major change in the program initial application and start-up report which began with the rural area. Originally, Peter Town community in Bong County was selected but after the initial activities that included: recruitment of families, administration of preschool readiness assessment, recruitment and training of home visitors and adult literacy teachers, the community was replaced when the town in general, had some internal problem with leadership and the condition was not favorable for the FLI program to continue in the area. Nyemah town, another rural community, was selected to replace Peter town as the new rural community and has become the hub for two other surrounding towns of Gankalasue and Marchee that were incorporated in the program.

 FLI program over the reporting period successfully conducted the following activities to achieve program outcomes:

We are particularly proud that the number of families that want to join the program has increased and the level of involvement of the community is impressive. Stakeholder’s meetings were held in each of the five project communities, bringing together at least 20 community leaders who enthusiastically embraced the program, and have agreed to help create awareness in churches, mosques and community gatherings stressing the importance of the FLI intervention in their communities and assure that recruited families would complete the program. The Ministry of Education in its review of the Education Sector Plan (ESP) has maintained the Family Literacy Initiative program in its plan for 2021-2026. These two events were pleasant surprises. We have learned that it is most important keeping our boundary partners in the loop. By continuing to engage them in every step of the way of the program, if we must succeed in the communities, and one day in the whole country.

Also, the Bracken assessment has also been very helpful, and it enables the program to gather evidence on each child school readiness status; this year we assessed 100 first-year children within the five communities involved; they have changed from crying babies and being afraid of strangers to laughing children as they join the role play during the lessons. For the parents, who could not read and write, the Out of School Learning Assessment (OLA) pre-test result is informing the program about the adult literacy curriculum and how to go about the classes- 107 learners are now writing their own names and their children’s names and numbers. They are really trying to teach their children and, in the process, obtain basic education.

 The total number of children that are directly being impacted by the program is 236 (104 boys/44% and 132 girls/56%) from five communities. Four communities in which WE-CARE has been implementing the Family Literacy Initiative (FLI) Program over the last six years and, one rural community in which this is the first year of implementation. These children come from the various ethnic groups of Liberia that make up the communities. The urban communities of Caldwell, West Point, Duazon and Neezoe have 205 children ages 3 to 5 participating in FLI. There are at least fifty children in each of the four communities. Nyema Town, which is the rural community has 30 age three children participating in the FLI program. These children are impacted by the “unnatural disaster of poverty” and are from low-income, low-literacy families and wouldn't have access to preschool without such a program.

Links:

• Friends of Liberia partners with WE-CARE Foundation in Liberia