Story #2-Human Rights Workshop

About a week before we left Liberia, Aaron had the opportunity to conduct a workshop titled: The Role of Community Leaders in Community Development. The staff of the Human Rights Monitor of the Liberian Methodist Conference attended, as well as other Human Rights advocates in the community.

Discussions focused around how to partner with the government, and how/why to promote community service among leaders.

The participants were very open, had great questions, and also had great ideas to promote peace and advocacy throughout Liberia. It is our hope that they will take the information they received, and the ideas that they formulated and put them into action. We hope that their passion for their work will be met with local passionate leaders, so that their dream of a better Liberia will become a reality.

Story #1: Teacher Workshops

Sorry for the delay in posting. We have been moving in and getting settled into our new environment in Champaign.

I wanted to post another picture and also tell you another story from the trip. This picture comes from one of the teacher training workshops that I was able to conduct. Out of two workshops, about 12 teachers, principals, and interpreters participated. The participants were from Hope school, as well as other schools for the Deaf in the Monrovia area. All of the participants were excited to be a part of the workshop, and very open to strategies and suggestions. I believe the hardest concept for them to understand or to accept, was the difference in behavior management philosophy. The discipline style of Liberian schools is very different than schools in the United States. While I don't think all of them believed my behavior management strategies would be successful in their classroom, they were very receptive to discussing different ideas, and possible trying something different.

While the workshops were beneficial, they were short. The teachers and staff deserve training to create successful schools, and the students deserve trained teachers so that they can be successful. Not until Liberia's government decides to completely support Special Education programs and their staff ,will the students receive the education that they deserve.

If you would like to know more about the workshops or about Special Education in Liberia, please let me now. I would love to share!

Next time, I will share about the workshop Aaron conducted.