Back2School for Peacemakers

9/17/2013 01:56:00 PM sendtheroths 0 Comments

Last week we registered 50 of the 100 former child soldiers in our program to continue their education. The other 50 are simply too far behind to succeed but we are in the planning stage of developing our own literacy and mathematics school to recuperate the time lost.

It was difficult to get to this point: negotiating with rebel warlords that we aren't a threat to their militia, doing the examinations to gauge each child's level of comprehension, extensive database searching and scrutinizing, training the Caretakers for the Peacemaker Program, and raising the funds to make all of this happen. 

Claude, our Masisi Outreach Coordinator, was happy to announce that we used the local chief's (the one who sold us the land to build our Masisi Training Center) house as the distribution point for handing out all of the uniforms, supplies and other school related items.

This was of huge strategic importance as it reflects good on the chief, our organization and it shows the community that we mean business. The community will know that we are serious about the promises we make when we make them. (Surprisingly, making good on promises is very rare even when considering the seemingly infinite budgets other organizations have as compared to us.)

We are proud to share these photos with you.

Willie, a Caretaker in our program, setting up uniforms to be distributed.

Unloading the pens, books, and other supplies to be distributed to the Peacemakers.

The assembly line of school supplies.

Claude taking roll and calling each of the Peacemakers in an orderly fashion to come and gather their specific items.

Claude enjoying a happy moment with a Peacemaker as he is called forward.

Claude explaining to one Peacemaker about all of the items that he is receiving.

Some of the Peacemakers proudly showing off their items that they received in order to begin schooling.