From Ventura to Africa
Foothill Tech students and teachers make friends and an impact in Sierra Leone
By Shaunacy Ferro 09/02/2010
When 10th-grade students at Foothill Technology High School in Ventura started reading A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah’s memoirs of his experience as a child soldier in Sierra Leone, they had no idea the impact it would have on their school.
But for English teacher Melissa Wantz and history teacher Cherie Eulau, the book would be a catalyst for a life-changing trip to Sierra Leone this past summer, and a promise to raise the $50,000 necessary to build a school there.
Since last spring, Wantz has completed a Web-based project connecting her students with kids in Sierra Leone, edited and published a book with them, and, with Eulau, helped run a teacher training workshop in the West African country.
It all began when, inspired by Beah’s story and the book Three Cups of Tea, Wantz applied for a $5,000 grant from the National Education Association to connect her students with Sierra Leonean students through what she called Project Hello.
After months of searching for students in a nation where fewer than 14,000 people have Internet access, Wantz finally got into contact with a U.S.-based nonprofit called Schools for Salone. The organization, made up of former Peace Corps workers, builds schools in Sierra Leone.
Joseph Lamin, the Sierra Leonean coordinator for Schools for Salone, chose 13 children in Freetown, the nation’s capital, and helped set them up with their first e-mail accounts.
Wantz created a Ning, a type of social network that would allow students to create profiles, post discussions and write blogs, and sent over a camera and money so they could use the Internet. With no mail service, she had to find people on the way to Sierra Leone to physically take the items for her. But over the course of the school year, the students shared their thoughts, feelings and dreams over the website.
The project also included the creation of a children’s book. With the help of Foothill’s-10th grade class, Wantz and her students compiled a collection of folk tales from each of the tribes of Sierra Leone and had them illustrated by a Sierra Leonean artist to create Salone Stories, a children’s book that will be used as a textbook in the 12 schools built by Schools for Salone.
Wantz started a website for the stories as a broader way of preserving some of the oral history that Sierra Leone is in danger of losing.
“A lot of the elders and older people were killed or families were disrupted [during the civil war], and a lot of children are growing up without access to these stories that have been passed down through the centuries,” Wantz said. “By having them on the Internet, anybody with a phone, eventually will be able to go on the site.”
And when Eulau suggested they go to Sierra Leone to participate in teacher workshops put on by the Friends of Sierra Leone — another nonprofit group dedicated to helping aid development in Sierra Leone — it was the perfect opportunity for Wantz to deliver the books herself, and meet the students she had been interacting with all year.
While there, they were also able to visit Lungi, the site of Schools for Salone’s next school, which the two teachers will raise the money to build.
“Building a school sort of organically grew out of us doing this book,” Wantz said. “We thought, wouldn’t it be nice to find a school and donate some of the books? And then we started thinking, well, wouldn’t it be nice if we could raise some money to help build a school?”
The teachers were moved by the people they met in Lungi, who were deeply committed to improving their educational opportunities. In the village, the 200 or so children are taught in small huts covered in thatch, with no latrines. During the rainy season, they cannot go to school because the rain comes through the thatch, and without a safe, dry place to store them, they can’t have books.
“These aren’t people who just want some rich Americans to build them a building. It’s more than that,” Eulau said. They understand what education means for them.”
When completed, the cement and metal school will be the nicest building in the area, attracting students from other villages as well. “Their whole village will be more highly respected because they cared enough to get a real school,” Wantz said.
To reach their goal, Wantz and Eulau are going to utilize the Hero Project, a Foothill program that requires every senior to create a community project for the 12th-grade year, completing at least 15 hours of service. More than 20 students have already volunteered to create fundraising projects, selling T-shirts, organizing and holding concerts to try to get the money together by next spring.
One such student, 17-year-old senior Kaval Ali, has always wanted to help build schools in other nations. “The more education you can get, the more opportunities you have in life to go places,” she said. “Why wouldn’t we give someone the opportunity to learn?”
The teachers plan to do presentations at local clubs, hold events and reach out to anyone they can for help. Though they agree it’s a lofty goal, they are confident they will succeed in their endeavor because it’s a cause that has affected them so deeply.
“It’s one of those things that people say, ‘It’s going to change your life,’ ” Eulau said. “But you don’t understand until you go.”
To learn more about building the school in Lungi, visit www.schoolsforsalone.org, or e-mail melissa.wantz@gmail.com and cherie.eulau@venturausd.org.
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT