By Mohamed Vandi in Bo
‘A Place to Grow Educational Center’, a humanitarian nursery school for destitute children, was officially opened at 5 Kaillie Lane, Kpetewoma Section in the southern Sierra Leonean city of Bo on 27 March 2013. No fees charged. Lunch is served free of cost. The owner of the school, Fallah Hausman, said she was very delighted to have established the facility for “children in need of quality education”. A teacher at the United Federation for Teachers Elementary Charter School in New York, Hausman said children should be highly respected and cared for in every aspect, including in the provision of quality education. She said the desire for the establishment of the school occurred to her in July 2012 during her visit to Bo with her two kids and she never looked back. She recalled that other children within the community were fond of her children and most times came around to play with them. Most of those children, she went on, seemed to have been deprived of quality education they could not read or identify the English alphabets. “I see those children as being deprived of quality education” she said, adding: “I feel they will be of the same level as my child who can read English words very well. Most of them I am told are not in school because of financial difficulties” Hausman said. She said this made her feel the need “to put my resources together to help them with basic quality education,” adding that her plans gradually became a reality when she returned to the US. “I am now in Bo to officially hand over the two-classroom building for ten pupils for a start,” she told her audience at a ceremony, and furthered that those pupils could be used for the pilot phase of her project, but warned against overcrowded classrooms if only the kids were to acquire quality education. She assured that the facility would be extended and expanded and possibly relocated to the land she had acquired, where she said there would be adequate funds and support to do so. She said all necessary teaching, learning and recreational materials would be provided in the school to help pupils attain quality education. Hausman said the early years are critical in a child’s development and around that time children rapidly develop physically, intellectually emotionally and socially. She said that in the USA, where she works as a teacher, nursery education was very paramount with all necessary provisions for effective learning provided. She explained that the school would be administered by trained, qualified and experienced female teachers and administrators, adding that a standard curriculum had been set up which the teachers would be expected to follow “strictly”. She called on other Sierra Leoneans living overseas to come to the aid of destitute children, calling them “the future leaders”. The Manager for Learning at the school, Theresa Songu, thanked the proprietress “for not only establishing the school, but also the scholarship facility extended to all ten pupils”. She said there had been a lot of information about the downward trend of quality education in the country, while apportioning blame for that on the “neglect” of nursery education. She assured that her leadership of the school would enhance effective administration that would provide quality education to the children, confirming that all required teaching and learning materials had been provided by the proprietress. One of the beneficiary parents, Hawa Kamara, said she felt extremely delighted for such an opportunity and expressed satisfaction that her child and the other children would now benefit from “quality education [and] for free”. “Not all Sierra Leoneans living in Europe have the courage to help in their homes of origin. Our saviour has helped our poor children. This help is more than anything, because when we grow older our children take care of us. So educating them is great,” she said.
