Monrovia – Hopes of beginning her 12th grade year had disappeared from 17-year-old Davidlyn Jackson, a 12th grader at the Star Baptist School System.
Report by Bettie K. Johnson-Mbayo, [email protected]
Weeks before the official opening of primary and secondary schools today, September 3, Davidlyn’s parents told her that she would have to begin her senior year in the next school due to their financial inability to put her through high school this year.
Ms. Jackson said her parents’ pronouncement left her with no hope.
She spoke at a financial aid program supported by 19-year-old Beulah Nimene, a first-year student at Cuttington University.
Ms. Jackson recalled how her family’s home, which had burnt down as a result of a fire incident, had exhausted all of her parents’ meager saving; hence their plan for her attending next year.
She’s the oldest of two; her mother Wilhelmina Willie said they are only focusing on her since she’s in senior high and about to graduate from high school.
She said life has not been favorable since the fire incident, which made them lose everything.
Davidlyn’s mother complained that the country’s current bad economic situation has made matter even difficult for her family.
Her mother disclosed that her fiancée, Davidlyn’s father, is a mason and contracts are limited or not forth coming.
She disclosed that at the moment, she is the major bread winner for the family and she does that by selling pastry.
Like Wilhelmina, Korpo Yallah, a mother of three, also is a beneficial of the financial aid.
Ms. Yallah told the gathering that even though she knows that schools would have opened today, she would never have been able to raise the first dime to send her daughter to school; adding, “All the lay thing I can get, we can use it for food.”
According to her, the fees for this school year have tripled from what she paid during the last academic year for her first grade daughter.
“We have been struggling to send her siblings to school. We thought that this year, she was never going to attend school because we don’t have enough money to put her in school, too. Also, the school fees keep climbing.”
Oretha Mensah and Roland Mulbah are beneficiaries, who, too, commended the Nimene Foundation for the full payment of their children’s academic fees.
Beulah Nimene, head of the Nimene Foundation, said she was grateful to increase the number of students from two to 10 students.
Ms. Nimene, who was the 2017 ‘Most Eloquent Speaker’ of the Liberia National High School Debate Championship, had planned on sponsoring 20 students from underprivileged communities.
The campaign was launched two months ago with support from Youth for Change.
Ms. Nimene, a young Liberian poet, on August 25, 2018 held a “Night of Poetry,” where she raised L$122,000 to help put kids back in school.
She said the financial aid provided by her foundation is a dip in a well in the face of the sudden increase in school fees in the country.
“We know that the country educational system needs improvement and the only way we can do this is when we all support a child in school.”
“This is a dip in a well; many students are still uncertain if they will attend school this academic year. We have listened to many parents speak of the hike in the fees at secondary schools.
“We are hoping and praying that we can be able to support more students in school after our next program,” Beulah said.
School bags and copybooks were also given to the 10 students that received the financial aid.