FROM THE FIELD
the edge of Monrovia, where parents pay to send their children
to orderly classes in classrooms with stories and pictures around the walls. These are not wealthy parents - many are street traders, but they go without to get their children an all-important
education. We are welcomed with a display of dancing and drumming and each class we visit rises to greet us politely. But even graduating from here doesn’t guarantee success in life:
the head teacher tells us that many of her pupils are selling what they can on the streets.In the afternoon we visit schools for the deaf and dumb and for the blind. This is really depressing.
Although they are called schools, they are really homes - many of the children are not claimed by their parents once they have been sent here. There is barely any money and the conditions are really
grim. The smell of damp and decay is completely pervasive. At the deaf and dumb school there is, at least, a pile of cheap new mattresses. They were donated after President
Bush’s recent visit, when lots of extra staff in Monrovia needed places to sleep. At the blind school they used to have six braille machines. Now they have only one that works: two were stolen
in a burglary and the others are broken. The children here are scared for their future - they will have nowhere to go when they leave at 16 years old.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
