Enewsletter #1, section A

Girls Education International Enewsletter #1, section A

Girls Education International news
Newsletter #1

Scholarship Program helps 11-year-old Liberian
The youngest child in the joint Girls Education International-Common Ground Society Liberia Scholarship Program, 11-year-old Jennie Flomo expected to drop out of school by third grade. The burden of school fees overwhelmed her family. Like her older sister, she would instead sell small condiments door-to-door or at the market, do laundry, find firewood, and cook.

The CGS Project Manager in Liberia, Emily Sherman-Davis, met Jennie at the Methodist School while doing the assessment and selection of the girls in Bong County, April 2008.

“On my way outside the building I met Jennie, a shy little girl in an worn-out dress outside the verandah,” Sherman-Davis says. “She walked up to me, greeted me with her head bowed, and asked: ‘Are you the woman that has come with the scholarships?’”

That day, Jennie had come to school to register, despite the fact that she wasn’t sure if her parents could pay the school fees. When she heard Sherman-Davis was in town, she asked for help.

“It is not a normal thing for a young person to easily approach an older person and make a request,” she explains. Moved and impressed, Sherman-Davis approved Jennie’s scholarship. When Jennie personally received her acceptance letter, Sherman-Davis says, “She ran up and down the school campus exclaiming, ‘I am so happy I want to run home and tell my parents that I got a scholarship that will pay my fees!’”

Jennie is now in Grade four and is among the first three students in her class. Her second period average is 85 (B+).

Please check out our blog (www.girlseducationinternational.blogspot.com) for photos of our Liberian girls.