In February 2020, VAN Community Outreach made a trip to Liberia to deliver an assortment of school supplies, clothes, and toiletries to over 3000 children, youth, and elderly in Grand Kru County. Over the six months of preparation, our organization successfully collected six barrels worth of goods to distribute to the people of Barclayville, Betu, Grandcess, and Sasstown. These four target areas were chosen due to their significance to members of VANCO and to the county of Grand Kru. Betu, Grandcess, and Sasstown are the ancestral homes of our board members while Barclayville acts as the capital city and epicenter of Grand Kru County.
During our week long trip, our team was able to provide:
- 3,027 students with an assortment of school supplies
- 96 packs of chalk, 100 chalkboard erasers, and other teaching supplies for school officials
- 72 bars of laundry soap were given to the elderly
- A barrel of clothes, shoes, and soccer balls to each of the four areas
- A cookout lunch for the children, students, and elderly at each of the four areas
- Medical supplies and $100 cash provided for generator fuel were donated to the Rally Time Hospital of Grandcess
Throughout the trip, our organization met with community leaders, school officials, and elders of each township to assess the needs of each community. Through these meetings and our personal assessments, our organization identified what issues we wanted to tackle in our near future. The first was the need of new canoes in Betu. Betu was our first stop and in order to reach the township one must cross the Gbatu River. When our team arrived, only one canoe was available cross the river. The old canoe only had enough space to fit three people, including the navigator, and had no seats available. This made the crossing of our team and supplies not only inefficient but uncomfortable. The limited travel accommodations would also deter people from entering and leaving the township as well as make the journey difficult for the elderly and the disabled. To remedy this issue, VANCO plans to construct a new, larger canoe for Betu.
The second issue was the need for each school to have a designated space for housing books. VANCO had received a large donation of books prior to the Outreach Trip and wanted to make arrangements with Grand Kru County school officials to send the shipment to Liberia. However, our team found that most of schools only had small reading corners where their humble collection of books sat on the floor. In order to create a space able to accommodate these books, VANCO decided to establish public libraries in each of the four areas to the benefit of the students of surrounding schools.
The final issue we found during our trip was the need of a stable, backup power supply for Rally Time Hospital of Grandcess. The night we stayed in Grancess, we alerted that hospital lost power and ran out of fuel for their gas generator. Our team was lucky enough to have $100 to provide to the hospital which allow the doctors to complete an emergency cesarean section surgery that night. However, our organization wants to provide the hospital a portable solar generator to give them more power supply options, diminish their dependence on gas, and prevent emergency situations from happening again.
Overall, our team had successful trip to inaugurate our outreach efforts by serving 3027 students and 19 schools, Rally Time Hospital, and the elderly!
