Butterfly : Providing Education in Liberia

The head of Butterfly a local NGO in Monrovia, Ms. Lisa Viau has donated a consignment of assorted furniture to a make-shift school she helped to established in Kpan Town, Marshall, lower Margibi County Liberia, as part of her vision to undertake the construction if a permanent school building for the mostly under-privilege inhabitants of a town which has approximately eight hundred people with yet, not a single school or a clinic.

According to the founder and head of Butterfly, there are big plans, but they have decided to take it one step at a time. Madame Viau's first move was to help rehabilitate a school in Firestone Plantation area with a generator to help facilitate its computer training program; followed by series of donations to local churches, schools and orphanages.

Lisa further stated that it was the kind and warmth expressions on the faces of the kids of kpan Town that capture her attention to give them some hope. She also said that her parent organization "Associations Pappilons", which is based in France, have already given their fullest support toward this initiative. The young humanitarian said that they intent to raise the level of the school sooner to enable children get a better future. According to Lisa, they are currently lobbying for US$ 12,000 to underwrite the cost of the school building.

As a sign of its continuous support, the Ministry of Education has promised to train eight teachers as part of a capacity building to enhance and sustain the first ever learning facility in the town. So far, a total of one hundred youths between the ages three to eighteen have already enrolled.

Making remarks on behalf of the government, the Director of Early Childhood Development at the Ministry of Education, Mrs. Yukhiko Amnon thanked Lisa and the Butterfly family for this initiative and admonished the leadership of the school to exhibit high level of responsibility to ensure the safety of the materials received. Mrs. Amnon also charged parents to make sure that their children are always in school, because education is the key to national development.