"I've been displaced so many times",
says Yama, a 15-year old girl now back in school at the UNICEF-supported
Jah Tondo internally displaced camp, located on the outskirts the Liberian
capital of Monrovia. "So many times. The first time I was 12-years
old, living in Zorzor, Lofa County. It was in 2000 when the rebels attacked.
My parents ran across the border to Guinea and I haven't seen them since.
I ran with my brother and my auntie to a displaced persons camp in Bopolu,
Gbarpolu County. We stayed there for 9 months. Then we had to run again
when the rebels attacked Bopolu."
Yama is walking along the edge of Jah
Tondo's schoolyard. It's a schoolyard like any other: the kids are out
for 15 minutes of recess. The girls are playing kickball, the boys are
playing football. The games are fast and furious and there is lots of shouting
and laughter whenever a goal or run is scored or missed. There's also a
collective groan from the children when the teacher blows the whistle for
recess to end and classes to begin again. It's a school like any other:
except it's not. The Jah Tondo school was attacked, over-run and looted
by rebels 3 times this year - in April, May and July. Yama and thousands
of other girls and boys living in Jah Tondo and in other displaced persons
camps nearby had to run for their lives each time. But now, with the support
of the Ministry Education and UNICEF Back To School initiative, the children
are back, learning in the peace and stability of school, eager to make
up for lost time.
"I remember when they attacked us in Bopolu", continues Yama. "It was about 4 a.m. We were sleeping on the ground and then we heard all the guns firing and everyone started screaming and we had to get up and run fast. We couldn't even carry anything with us because it all happened so quickly and was still dark. It took us a long time before we finally got to Saw Mill, which is beyond Bomi County. We stayed there at another displaced persons camp.
The Back To School classes at Jah Tondo take place at the camp's Child Friendly Space which is also supported by UNICEF Liberia. After 14 years of fighting and instability in Liberia, UNICEF considers the education situation at Jah Tondo and throughout the country as an emergency. Classes have begun again, but the conditions in Jah Tondo's classrooms are not quite what they were earlier this year before the repeated rebel attacks on the camp began. Nothing was spared at the Child Friendly Space school: plastic sheeting covering the roofs were looted; teaching and learning materials were stolen; the separate girls and boys latrines were destroyed by rocket fire; and, the wooden school benches in the classrooms were burned. "We used to sit at wooden desk-benches", explains Yama. "But all the benches were destroyed when the rebels attacked Jah Tondo. They carried off some benches, but most were just broken up and used as firewood."
In addition to having recently helped supply and distribute over 4,660 teaching and learning education kits to schools in Liberia, UNICEF has already re-covered the classroom roofs with new plastic sheeting to protect the children's classrooms from Liberia's heavy rains and hot sun. This is clearly an important element of the Back To School initiative, as the start of yet another heavy Liberian rain begins to beat down on the classroom roofs. While seeking funding support to help provide replacement wooden school benches for the classrooms, UNICEF Liberia also immediately provided each classroom with new, clean white plastic sheeting for the children to sit on. The children want to keep their classrooms clean so they are always careful to take off their small, plastic shoes before sitting down on the floor crossed-legged, their knees or the floor serving as their desks.
"We stayed at the Saw Mill displaced persons camp for about one month, before that camp was also attacked by the rebels who were advancing towards Monrovia", continues Yama. "That's when we had to start walking towards Monrovia for safety, but before we reached Monrovia, we arrived here at the Jah Tondo camp. It was while we were walking between Saw Mill and Jah Tondo that I started having problems with my feet." Yama shows the scar-like marks on her feet. "My feet started swelling up at that time from all the walking and they were infected and the sores started to erupt", she says. "They were hurting me too badly, but when we got to Jah Tondo, we felt safe and the people at the health clinic here were able to help my feet so my auntie decided that we should stay here while my feet got better." The camp's health clinic is supported by UNICEF Liberia through the provision of essential drugs and other medical supplies.
"But, we didn't stay long in Jah Tondo the first time, because my auntie thought things would be better for us in Monrovia", says Yama. "So, we went into Monrovia, but life was too hard. There was nothing to eat and no work for us and there was no where to stay. We were tired and hungry, so after awhile of struggling in the city, we came back to live at Jah Tondo for good."
"This April, my auntie and I were out in the bush outside Jah Tondo collecting firewood, when we heard gunfire coming towards the camp", says Yama. "We knew that it was the rebels again, because they were always following us, moving towards Monrovia. So we had to run again and this time we made it to the Ma Barclay displaced persons camp. We stayed there for awhile, but there was not enough food for all the extra displaced people and life was tough there.
We didn't stay there for too long before we decided to go back to Jah Tondo because the shooting and fighting had stopped."
"But when we got to Jah Tondo, the rebels were still in the camp and all around the area. We were in a big group of displaced people that came walking back to the camp at the same time. The rebels had the food and they told us that if we wanted food, we had to dance for them. They thought it was very funny, but I felt very sad", says Yama. "But I danced anyway because what else could I do? They said they would beat us if we didn't. But my brother, who had cholera and was too weak and sick couldn't dance. They beat him even though he was sick. They only made us dance for food once, but I can't ever forget that. My brother was in a bad way for some time after his beating. We left the camp again for Monrovia soon after because it wasn't safe for us."
"It was about that time that I started having troubles in my head", says Yama. "That's when 'jina' started to come and visit me." (Some Liberians believe that 'jina' is an evil spirit). "'Jina' surrounded and engulfed me and made me feel unconscious. People thought I was going out of my head and I would try to run to the bush to escape from 'jina', but the people would hold me down and tell me to stay in the camp and that 'jina' would soon go away and leave me alone. 'Jina' finally stopped visiting me in my head a little while ago. I am still scared 'jina' might come back to me, but for now, I am alright."
"In late May, we were staying in the house of a friend of my aunty in Monrovia when the rebel attacks on Monrovia began", says Yama. "One of the rockets landed right in front of the house and exploded. No-one was hurt, but that is only because we were lucky that it landed outside and not on the house. Before then, I never thought about God and I never went to church because of all the bad war things happening in Liberia. But, when that rocket just missed exploding our house, I began to think about God and now I try to go to church service every Sunday."
"We stayed in Monrovia throughout all the fighting and attacks during the summer and we only came back to Jah Tondo 4 weeks ago", says Yama. "I am happy to be here - but only because I can go to school again now. I don't really like to be living in a camp again. I want to be able to go home to Lofa County and find my parents, but they say there are still problems there and we can't go back. So we don't have any choice but to stay here." (Yama's photo at left).
Just over 2 weeks ago, on 3 November, the Chairman of Liberia's National Transitional Government, Charles Gyude Bryant, launched Liberia's Back To School initiative with the Ministry of Education and UNICEF Liberia. Back To School is an enormous emergency response to revitalizing the education system in Liberia - a system on the verge of virtual collapse after 14 years of fighting and instability in the country. The Back To School campaign provides 750,000 Liberian girls and boys, 20,000 teachers and 3,700 schools with the basic education supplies they need to learn and teach effectively in the form of over 4,660 School-In-The-Box education kits, provided by UNICEF to schools in 5 accessible counties of Liberia: Montserrado, Bomi, Bong, Margibi and Grand Bassa. Schools in the Child Friendly Spaces at Jah Tondo and at other internally displaced persons camps were also recipients of the School-In-The-Box education kits.
For thousands of Liberian children, Back To School is a special opportunity, representing the first time they have had a chance to go to school, having lived their entire young lives in a country in conflict. But it's not just the children who are benefiting. "The fighting here was very bad", says Daniel Williams, of the NGO Children's Assistance Program, which helps run Jah Tondo's Child Friendly Space. "They looted everything we had. Everything. Before the attacks, we were teaching with some School-In-The-Box kits, with blackboards, with chalk, with textbooks ... we had so many things to teach the children with. But, when it was finally safe enough to return, we found there was nothing left at the school. We had to start again from zero. That's why Back To School is so important for us. We were demoralized and it's really helping us to get schooling off the ground again. It's not only good for the children, it's good for the teachers and the parents, too."
The UNICEF School-In-The-Box kits include student copy books, counting blocks, chalk, pencils, slates, crayons, clocks, measuring rulers and triangles, teaching materials, markers, etc., as well as plastic school bags for the children to carry their books. The education kits also include black paint that is used to paint the inside of the top of the box black so it can be used as a blackboard. At schools like Jah Tondo, where the blackboards have all been looted or burned, the painted lid is vital to teaching and learning and is often the center of attention for the children sitting on their plastic sheeting, carefully copying their lessons down under the watchful eyes of their teachers.
"My favourite subject is reading", says Yama. "My parents were poor and they could not read and many people where we lived could not read either. The adults liked it when I would come home with a book and read stories to them. That's why I like reading the best, because it helps me to make other people happy. You must be able to read well to study if you want to be a doctor. I want to be a doctor because they help cure sick people, like when my feet were so sore. That's what I want to do with my life. To read and learn how to be a doctor so I can help sick people in my country."
UNICEF Liberia's Support the Back To School Initiative
Liberia's Back To School initiative isn't just about the emergency supply and distribution of School-In-The-Box education kits. UNICEF Liberia is also working together with the Ministry of Education and other UN and nongovernmental organizations on a wide variety of other activities to revitalize the education system in Liberia. In addition to supplying education kits, UNICEF Liberia is orienting teachers in emergency education, including: numeracy; literacy; physical education; psycho-social and counseling principles; music and drama; and, scheme of work plans. UNICEF Liberia is also providing plastic sheeting for over 180 temporary learning spaces in areas where schools have been destroyed, to provide shelter from Liberia's heavy rains and hot sun so that over 9,000 children in these spaces can concentrate on learning. Another shipment of over 3,000 School-In-The-Box education kits will soon arrive in Liberia from UNICEF Copenhagen and will be distributed to schools not covered in the first round of distribution. In addition, UNICEF Liberia supports child protection and psycho-social counseling activities for children affected by war, to ensure that children like Yama can forget about 'jina' and can concentrate on learning and just being children again.
Information For Donors:
UNICEF Liberia is currently seeking much needed funding to expand its emergency education programs to help revitalize the Liberian education system. To find out more about how to help fund UNICEF Liberia's education programs, please contact Cyrille Niameogo, UNICEF Liberia Representative and Samuel Momanyi, UNICEF Liberia Programme Coordinator at: cniameogo@unicef.org and smomanyi@unicef.org. End text.