Teacher Hawa teaches her students in the girls’ club how to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy.
Schools become “child-friendly” with Let Us Learn
The Gibraltar School has 556 students. Classes are already held in two shifts, but the classrooms are still extremely full. The school is one of the first 200 schools in Liberia to become “child-friendly” with the help of UNICEF. This requires comprehensive measures: for example, UNICEF is helping three colleges to better train teachers and raise awareness of the special needs of disadvantaged children. The establishment of parent-teacher committees is also supported in order to encourage the commitment of mothers and fathers to good school operations.
At the Gibraltar School, “child-friendly” also means a new water connection and toilets, which UNICEF has financed. The “child-friendly” principle is to be gradually extended to all 2,800 public schools in Liberia – together with the local authorities. Currently, only every second school has toilets, and often there is no water connection either. This is why adolescent girls who have their period often stay at home during this time.
Two new kindergarten rooms were also built, directly opposite the school building. Here, younger children are prepared for the best possible start to school. What is still urgently needed in Gibraltar are school social workers or psychologists. Many of the children and young people grow up in very harsh conditions at home, have to earn money or are exposed to violence. But so far there are only 200 such specialists in the whole of Liberia.
