In the memory of a dear friend Jan Silber, who recently passed, I am prompted to redouble our African outreach. Though she was never able to come to Liberia, Jan loved and generously supported our work with the Global Cares Academy and Orphanage.
In Jan’s name and on her request to be remembered through donations to that school, we, yet again, reach to our supporters — former, current and those to come — to help Global Cares achieve its decades-long dream, a model institution to serve the children and transform a nation so long plagued by illiteracy, poverty and war. See, https://www.gofundme.com/f/
Little did I know on my first journey to West Africa — volunteering in 2005 to assist in a one-week youth conference on human rights — that at least in spirit I would never fully return home. Humanity reached out, not so much to take me by the hand as to grab a hold of my heart. Now, nearly two decades on, helping the peoples of “The Continent” is my continuing calling and joy.Over recent decades, West Africa has been one of the most challenging regions of the planet, including the Liberian and Sierra Leonean civil wars and genocides (1988-2003 and 1991-2002 respectively), Ebola (2014-2015), COVID (2020-2022) and, through it all, one of the highest regional illiteracy rates on the planet.
And so, I have worked – along with many courageous and inspired West African youth leaders and our Western world donors and supporters – to make the human right to education a regional reality by training teachers and students on L. Ron Hubbard’s Study Technology through Applied Scholastics International.
Partnership in Liberia with the Global Cares Mission Academy and Orphanage and its founder Florence Morris has been a key aspect of our work since my first trip to that country, in 2006. Against all the seemingly insurmountable hardships in one of the world’s poorest nations, “Mother Florence” has taken in, raised and educated thousands of children, many of them orphans, since the slaughters stopped with United Nations intervention in 2003.
While our support of Global Cares through the past 19 years has been meaningful – monies for essential building repairs, paper, pens, books, rice and other provisions (out of which, and to my amazement, they added my name to the school early last year!) – Mother Florence, her teachers and staff remain starkly poor yet defiantly resolute in their mission, taking on 150-200 students in leaky, broken buildings lacking electricity, running water.
In keeping with Jan’s wish, it is time to take our Global Cares support to the next level. Along with my close Liberian collaborator Joseph Jay Yarsiah and a well-respected local contractor, we are embarked on a full renovation of the Global Cares facility, including solid foundation, walls, roofing and windows, along with insulation, plumbing and electrical power.
With construction projected to begin as soon as feasible this year, we are seeking the funds needed – tax deductible as donations to Applied Scholastics International — for renovation labor and materials along with furniture, books and related materials. As above,
We of course hope you can help us meet this immediate target to bring Mother Florence’s long sought attainment of a model institution dedicated to the children and thus the future of Liberia.Again, thanks and best wishes,
Tim Bowles
Pasadena, California
January 12, 2024