MCF Academy Groundbreaking - Travel Diaries
On November 17, MacDella and and MCF Director Tammy Tibbetts travel to Liberia for two weeks, to work with the builders and administrators Michelle and Leonora on the beginnings of the MCF Academy. Follow their journey here as Tammy posts updates during the trip. They'd love to hear from you -- send comments to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and if you want to take further action, click the buttons below!
Day 11
Today was the official opening day of beaches in Monrovia, kind of like Memorial Day (tomorrow is a national holiday -- the birthday of a past president). We headed to the beach known as Thinker’s Village, where we met up again with Penelope Chester, co-founder of the Niapele Project. You know her from my Thanksgiving Day post as the one introducing us to a feeding program for our students at DuPort Road. Teaming up with the Niapele Project on a venture that is healthy both for children and local agriculture was a highlight of this trip! Penelope showed us some spreadsheets she created to calculate costs. So yes, we did a little bit of work today, but it was against the backdrop of the breezy Atlantic Ocean in a cabana, and in inspiring company, so it was still relaxing!
We also brought MacDella’s daughters to the beach. Few people realize that MacDella is a foster mom to four Liberian girls, one of whom is extra special in my memories because when I first interviewed MacDella in my reporting days, she told me stories of meeting this neglected little girl named Leila. She saw a spark in her, so she took her into her Liberian home, sent her to school, and found a caretaker for her. That little girl has since grown up to be such a confident teenager, earns very high marks in school, and is proof of what can happen to each child you see in tattered T-shirts alongside the street every day, if given basic needs and an education. Isn't it amazing to compare this photo of Leila from the past to today?
And this is where I leave you, loyal blog readers! Thank you for following our journey to break ground on the Academy. I am back to the land of Starbucks, Blackberries, and mass transit on Tuesday. I'm in as much disbelief that it's time to go as I was when it was time to leave NY...MacDella will remain in Liberia for another two weeks to oversee the beginnings of construction. When I return, I'll be starting our online holiday campaign for giving the gift of $100 to feed a child at the MCF Academy for a year. And I'll just keep remembering how we need to raise more Leilas...they are the future Ellen Johnson Sirleafs!
Day 10
Today was like playing the Liberian version of The Price is Right – I needed to find the cost of everyday items from pencils to soap to toothpaste, so that we could accurately determine our sponsorship fees and budget for the MCF Academy. We don’t want to import everything from the US, as that won’t help the local economy, so for this price checking assignment, I headed to Waterside, Liberia’s main marketplace, with my local MCF experts, Arnet and Tommy. 
Waterside is the most bustling part of the city – for a New York City girl, it’s reminiscent of shoving through Times Square crowds and haggling in Chinatown. We stopped inside one man’s shop and asked him to give us the value of the various items a boarding student would need, because there are no price stickers on anything if you were to browse. Shopping in Liberia is all about haggling, and that I observed when we stopped to buy four uniforms for girls in our sponsorship program. Originally, the salesman tried to charge us the equivalent of $10 US dollars a piece for the uniform jumper alone, but Arnet and Tommy got the price down to $25 for all four small navy uniform jumpers and pink button-down shirts. I was the only American in the marketplace this morning and this is the reason—only a local can negotiate the best price.
After pricing was done, MacDella met up with me, and we headed to Mamba Point to lunch with a photojournalist I’ve long admired, an American expat named Glenna Gordon, whose ‘photo of the day’ on Scarlett Lion will take your breath away. I’ve seen her portraits of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in The New York Times Magazine, I’ve followed her on twitter, and I’ve bragged about her to just about everyone I know doing good work in Liberia, because Glenna is always around town photographing a UNICEF project, a vaccination clinic, or just those random moments that humanize all the numbing statistics of poverty. When you look at her photos here, how can you not be moved to act? Her work keeps me going when I’m a world away in New York. I encourage you to visit her blog, and then come back to me inspired…and if you ask me what you can do for the MCF Academy (email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ), I promise I’ll get back to you with a meaningful contribution for any budget or any time commitment. My two-week journey is soon ending, but Team MCF Academy is just beginning.
Day 9
A low-key day was in order and today was it -- our biggest accomplishment today was meeting as a team this morning in the apartment to do some MCF Academy budget planning for student needs. MacDella and I laid the framework of this in the States with our finance guru Barbra Perlstein, but it's time to do some nitty-gritty price checking before I go home, so I can adjust our sponsorship levels for the 2010 academic year. As I've mentioned, our education sponsorship/scholarship program is what I'm most focused on in MCF. It has since become the heart of a global campaign I created called She's the First -- our PSA video encourages you to bring your friends together to sponsor a student, who does not have her family's support for tuition yet has the potential to break barriers and change the world if given the chance. (Note that MCF's program is co-ed, so you can support boys too!)
I ended the day with this beautiful view of the pool and ocean from the deck of Kendeja Resort, the hotel funded by Robert Johnson, Founder of Black Entertainment Television, and built in a mere 10 months by our building company, GBS-Liberia. It's a first step toward reviving tourism in Liberia, and it provided just the scenery I needed when jotting down some ideas for MCF operations when I return to the States. I've got a great new promotion in the works where you can give someone the gift of feeding a child at the MCF Academy for one year for $100, in lieu of something they really don't need...stick with me and you'll be giving your best Christmas presents ever this year and avoiding the malls altogether!
And speaking of holiday shopping insanity, tomorrow morning I'm headed to Waterside, the marketplace, which sounds about as crazy as the malls on Black Friday. I'll be price checking all the line items we identified in the budget today. Wish me luck!
Day 8
I’ll always remember Thanksgiving 2009 for something far better than turkey, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie: it was the day we observed the feeding program at the Carolyn A. Miller School in Liberia, where for only 19 cents a day, each child receives a filling rice meal. It’s an amazing model, because not only does it ensure children are fed and can therefore concentrate in class, but it also supports the local economy – it creates jobs for women as cooks and the rice is sourced from Bong county in Liberia, NOT imported from the US or Middle East. 
Now are you ready for the super exciting news? Thanks to Penelope Chester, the co-founder of the Niapele Project, which is the organization that created this feeding model (we discovered each other on Twitter!), we are getting set up to purchase the same cost-effective, locally grown, and highly nutritious meals for our 60 sponsored students at Action Faith Institute! These students were not receiving lunch meals, so imagine what an impact this will have on their ability to focus. And there is even more good news!! We are implementing an after-school study hall for the MCF scholarship children from DuPort Road. Our social workers Tommy and Arnet, along with our older students making good marks, will spend two hours a day helping the struggling students with their homework – because their guardians, most of whom never went to school themselves, just aren’t in a position to do so.
Before we saw the feeding program in action, we revisited the schools I saw on Monday – this time, the children’s guardians were rounded up. MacDella came, along with Sister Leonora and Michelle. The guardians of our students who are studying hard, or ‘trying small,’ as they say in Liberia, adore MacDella – when she stepped out of our van, they gravitate toward her like one would a celebrity in New York (she’s going to scold me for writing that, but I want you to picture this). I had to pull her along so that we could begin our business: a conference to clarify the purpose of the MCF sponsorship program. After three years of MCF supporting these kids, the guardians of a few students have become lax and need a reminder that their child’s education is funded by MCF, but must be enforced by them. Because life here is so community-oriented, it’s best to make the announcement to all, rather than just the few it pertains to, so each family monitors the other. The entire community must be a part of encouraging the children to study, MacDella said, because scholarships can and will be lost if grades are not maintained. We are going to give extra help by implementing a study and feeding program – now they must meet us halfway. 
Students will be reevaluated at the end of the semester: those with good marks who are no older than 10 and in 3rd grade or below will transfer to MCF Academy. We’ll continue to see those with good marks in the older grades through to high school graduation, and we will help those who had such a late start in school (i.e. a teenager in grade 3) to pursue vocational training instead.
So here I am at the end of Thanksgiving Day, so proud of MCF and our team on the ground in Liberia. We took a problem manifested on Monday and announced a plan of action on Thursday. And we did it in a way that expressed to the adults from DuPort Road that they are not our ‘charity case’ by any means – they are our partners, and their children’s futures are our shared cause. For that progress today, I am most thankful.
Day 7
We visited the largest all-girl school in Liberia today -- Stella Maris, a Catholic institution which educates 900 students, 200 of whom are poor and on scholarship. We specifically got a tour of Stella Maris Polytechnic, the very selective nursing campus (1,000+ take the entrance exam and just over 100 are admitted), to meet with its founder, Sister Barbara Brilliant. True to her surname, she is one of the most highly respected women in Liberia, as she's lived here for 34 years, through the entire war, and is a leading expert on health education here. She has offered to help us find a quality nurse for the MCF Academy, and we will also purchase health and wellness books for our students via her office. This is so vital, because the health and wellness books on the general market for private school students are grossly misconstrued. Look at this page photographed from the health work book used by grade 1 in private Liberian schools -- it asks children to identify which person is HIV positive. The answer to the question is intended to be the woman, because she is skinner (seriously?!), but you wouldn't know that if I didn't tell you, because this book was sold without a teaching manual. How scary is that -- children are not getting a fully explained lesson and learning to inaccurately judge others based on appearance. And this is not an old book -- it is copyrighted 2009. I think it will take Liberia's education system quite some time to reform the required books and curriculum, but at least with the MCF Academy, we can be the change we wish to see.
We ended the day at the Royal Hotel, meeting up with Andrew Tyler, Country Director of Orphan Relief and Rescue (ORR), an organization I discovered via the 'Love in Liberia' blog of Ashley Stoll, a twentysomething American whose work with ORR immediately inspired me, and now we exchange epic emails about our Liberia projects. We plan to work with Andrew and his team to find sponsors for orphans living in worst of the orphanages, so we can send them to the MCF Academy to live and learn, in effect forcing the orphanage to shut down.
Tomorrow on Day 8, we're revisiting the schools I went to on Monday. Remember how I discovered some issues with poor grades and broken homes? We're now having some parent/teacher/student conferences to implement a solution. We're about to make a really great move that I'll tell you more about tomorrow. I'm very proud of how quickly we've reacted to this situation, pulled together the community, and focused on what we can do together to make an immediate difference.
Day 6
We took an awesome field trip to visit Firestone Liberia Headquarters today! We drove out to Harbel, a self-sustaining town that was built around the company and the thousands of jobs it created. I am a huge advocate of corporate social responsibility, and what Firestone does will impress you. We received a personal tour from Charles Stuart, the president of Firestone Liberia, a friend of MacDella and the Foundation, who is about as Liberian as any non-native can get -- he's lived here since before the war and speaks the dialogue perfectly. 
In 1926, Firestone started producing their own rubber in Liberia, and today, they run the world's largest single natural rubber organization on 200 square miles, growing more than 8 million rubber trees. Firestone has used their gains to help rebuild Liberia after the war, especially by building and renovating schools (you read an example of that in my Day 2 post) and providing free medical service to those in need. Charles knows everything that goes on here, down to what Liberian dish is served in the cafeteria that day. He introduced us to the superintendent of Firestone schools and one of their 32 school principals. They spent nearly two hours imparting their wisdom, from how to hire and retain certified teachers to where to buy uniforms and books. Students of Firestone Liberia's school system score above average on the standard West African exam (a huge deal), so their insight for the MCF Academy is priceless.
After lunch at the Firestone staff lounge, Charles and a doctor gave us a tour of the Firestone Medical Center in Duside, which Firestone reopened last November for members of the Harbel community. Here, babies are born (we saw one who was only a couple hours old!), surgeries are performed, checkups are given, and medications are prescribed. It's an incredibly sterile facility and the staff takes great pride in their work.Our hearts broke visiting the pediatric ward, where there was a frail toddler in a crib, because she cannot eat through the mouth anymore. Her digestion system is totally ripped inside because she drank dirty water that had caustics in it (materials used to make soap). The clinic helps anyone who needs it, regardless of whether or not they can afford the treatment.
Firestone also has wood operations and we're hoping to order our furniture for the Academy through them, as it will support the local economy. Overall, it's an honor to have their school system act as a mentor for our Academy and to be partners together in raising Liberia's new generation of leaders.
Day 5
I spent two hours at the dining room table tonight poring over a folder of report cards I collected today from the 80 students MCF sends to school in Liberia. As you may know, MCF started with a huge emphasis on orphanage restoration, and then our primary project became education sponsorship. The MCF Academy is our newest and certainly the biggest project yet. While MacDella is working very closely with our administrators, builders, and top donors and advisers on the Academy, my top focus is now overseeing the scholarship students we're supporting across five schools. (We originally sent them to the same school, but because these students' families are squatters, many had to move this year when the landowners returned to build, hence the transfers).
I promised to give you the real deal about this trip and nothing less, so here are two important things to know:
1. I do not -- and cannot, especially when I'm in the States -- uphold this scholarship program alone, not even with the amazing Blaire Briody -- our coordinator who updates all you sponsors out there -- at my side in NYC. Today I had the great pleasure of meeting Arnet, who I've emailed with over the past year, in person. She is akin to a social worker who keeps track of our students, monitors their grades, checks up on them at home when they are absent, etc. We are pictured here visiting Emma, Rebecca, Hannah, and Watchue at the School of Christ. A Liberian who helps the Foundation, named Tommy, also accompanied me and this was of the utmost importance -- he helps me communicate the Foundation's needs in a culturally sensitive way. I firmly believe international and local involvement must align and the Tammy-Tommy tag team was quite successful at that today.
2. A team of good educators is vital -- and we are seeking to cultivate that for the MCF Academy (send resumes my way!) -- but the sad truth is that there is a severe shortage in Liberia. Therefore, question everything and support the notion of shared accountability. I love seeing children walk to school in uniforms from outside my bedroom window each morning, but after my visits today, I learned you can't look at that, pay the tuition bill, and think your job is done. You need to ask, 'How are their grades?' When you find out that a few are struggling, take the principal's recommendation to send them to after-school tutoring. When you hear some guardians don't motivate them to participate, set up a feeding program to give the child incentive. To ensure accurate grading, we'll implement our own performance metrics too, so that guardians and teachers know that each child must earn their scholarship; it's not simply a given. The saying is true -- it takes a village.
We're striving to improve the children's lives in the present (remember they come from a town where the unschooled have to crush rocks for a living, risking injury), and we can use the MCF Academy in the future to execute what we believe the ideals for an educational institution are. After visiting three schools today and greeting our students, of course I realize there is so much one cannot fix, especially with broken home life. But if we focus on what we can do and not wait on the system to change (though I ensure you President Sirleaf is hard at work on it!), we'll at least be taking small steps rather than stalling in place. MCF can, and will, move forward with the action plan for tutoring and feeding that I've mentioned above for the struggling students, and we'll continue to celebrate our many honor roll students -- and we need your help for this cheerleading.
What you can do: Sponsor a scholarship for a child in our program. Plenty of them still seek an individual sponsor for the scholarship MCF has committed to them. (Gather your friends or family this holiday season, click the button at the top of this page, and sponsor a child together in lieu of gifting to each other. Avoid the mall on Black Friday -- it's a win-win.)
To the fabulous sponsors we currently have, including O Magazine, Bernice Cooper, Max Girombolli, Pamela Bell, Beatrice Pillet, Stephanie Kammerer, Merill Davidoff, Barbara Brennan, Greg Gibson, Loren Averick & Family, Diana Vilibert, Michelle Collins, Monica Townsend's dorm at Notre Dame University, Amina Sirleaf, Sharon Harrison -- today was in your honor. I can't wait to show you my photos and bring you the kids' letters. When they receive your notes, trust me, it gives them true motivation. My favorite example of this is Cynthia Sackie, our shining star who will graduate from 12th grade in June. She carries herself with such pride and acts as a leader, knowing what it means to be sponsored by O Magazine. She's pictured below, snapping photos of her younger classmates during our little activity with disposable cameras.
I'll be making another round of visits to these schools again on Thursday. Tomorrow is Election Day in Liberia, so school is closed, and we're headed to visit Firestone! 
Day 4
MacDella had me up bright and early to attend my first Liberian church service at the Providence Baptist Church. Afterward, we considered for a moment having a leisurely Sunday of rest at the beach, but then a productive adventure called our name. We went on a rugged roadtrip with an absolutely delightful government official, who I liken to the Rahm Emanuel of Liberia. He took us to the Evergreen Farm, hidden behind villages and far from the main roads, in Charlesville. Bennetta, the woman who owns the farm, grows vegetables for the main supermarkets and hotels in Liberia. Agriculture is an area Liberia is really striving to improve and this farm is truly on the frontlines of that movement. This was great research for the nutrition program for the MCF Academy, since the land we scoped out yesterday is nearby.
In the end, we did get that Sunday R&R. After the farm, we bumped up and down unpaved roads in our SUV, far, far out in a neighboring town called Marshall...I had no idea what in the world could be worth all that driving, and then our wonderful guide pulls up to this: a bridge that crosses over to the most refreshing African beach home, where we had dinner with some new international company and watched the sun set behind the ocean.
We need more bridges like this in Liberia -- and I mean that figuratively most of all. It's amazing what's hidden off the beaten paths when you look for it (and think not just beach real estate -- I'm talking countless village children secluded from schools), and the potential here is limitless.
Day 3
Today we visited the land site we've scoped out for the MCF Academy in Charlesville, with our incredible builders, GBS-Liberia, and their surveyor -- bringing the conversations we had on Day 1, with the current landowner, to life: We re-mapped the property's boundary lines to choose the best acreage available.
While the GBS guys did their thing -- and let me tell you, MacDella sure can keep up with them! -- I chatted with the local children, who watched our activity and told us about life in their village.
What saddened me most: There is no high school in the area. Emmanuel, holding a soccer ball, told me his dream was to be a scientist...how can that happen when the nearest high school is an hour away and he has no transportation? Some of the kids had no shoes, others no pants...and the ratty T-shirts they do have are throwaways from the States. Driving down the streets of Monrovia earlier, I saw a boy in a Rutgers Scarlet Knights T-shirt -- that's the closest university to my hometown. Much like the story behind the book The Blue Sweater, it makes you wonder: How can we be so interconnected around the world, yet the gap between the poor and privileged so wide?
We have our work cut out for us.
Day 2 [Update from 11/26: Just received this photo of MacDella meeting the President at the dedication ceremony, as promised!]
I’m letting MacDella highjack the blog today for good reason: SHE MET THE PRESIDENT! Photos to come, and the as-told-to-me tale is below:
“I had lunch with my friend Charles Stuart, director of Firestone Liberia, and his team. They were in town from Firestone [about 45 minutes outside of the city] doing a dedication ceremony of the renovated Harvey S. Firestone Quadrangle Science Building at the University of Liberia. The building was majorly damaged during the war and Firestone paid to have it renovated. The President was expected to attend, which I didn’t find out till we got there. Charles Stuart and his team invited me to sit with them on the stage, and right after the President’s remarks, we went to cut the ribbon and unveil the plaque with Mr. [Harvey] Firestone’s name on it. After the unveiling of the plaque, Charles pulled me over and said, ‘MacDella, I’d like to introduce you to the President.’ I went over and stood next to him and he also pulled her over. ‘Ms. President, I would like to introduce you to MacDella Cooper. She’s building a school in Charlesville for children.’ She lit up and said, ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you – tell me about the school. Are you doing it alone or is it with an organization?’ I said, ‘Yes, we have a team of people that I work with. We’ve been providing scholarships for students and we’re building this school to bring them all together.’ And she said, ‘Wow, thank you.’ She said, ‘Tell me more about this school.’ But I knew she was surrounded by so many people who wanted to talk to her as well. I said, ‘I hope I have another opportunity to tell you more about this school.’ And she said, ‘I go through Charlesville quite a bit and every time I go through, I see a lot of children just doing nothing,’ and she said, ‘I’m really happy you’re doing a school in the Charlesville area.’ I said, ‘This is the very reason we are trying to build a school and I said, ‘Thank you.’”
p.s. The other awesome part of today was meeting up with James, who attends Cuttington University on a MCF scholarship (pictured above). We delivered to him some science textbooks and a new computer (he says thanks to the donor, Marcus Wandell). James shared his most recent successes (becoming VP of his class!) and thanked the Foundation for our support. He's finishing his chem degree in June, after an accelerated three years of study! Flip video interview to come.
Day 1
MacDella and I landed in Liberia last night just after 8pm! I’m staying with MCF Academy administrators, Sister Leonora and Michelle, who’ve been living here to oversee the Academy from start to finish. Today, the three us and MacDella checked the first and highest priority off our list: meeting face-to-face with the current land owner of the MCF Academy site and the building team. We are adjusting boundaries to avoid swampland and ensure the optimal building conditions—and are days away from having the deed in our hands! At lunch today, we reviewed a draft of the deed, as pictured.
Later, we met with Mike Murphy, owner of Global Buildings Solutions, LLC, and Tom Jeffrey, who recently finished building Bob Johnson’s hotel, RLJ Kendeja Resort & Villas, in a mere 10 months. We’re in the hands of the best and most ethical builders in the entire country and listening to them today, I realized how much is involved in finding a happy medium between the art of architecture and the practicality of construction. It can’t be underemphasized how top-notch the MCF Academy team is – from the educational experience of the administrators, the world-acclaimed style of our architect Winka Dubbeldam, and the efficiency of GBS. I’m truly in awe and just trying to keep up by recording notes and our ‘next steps’ to blast out to MacDella and the board.
Mike referenced a signature quote of Ronald Reagan today: “Trust but verify.” That’s the theme of the first phase of our trip – taking all the great verbal commitments we’ve gotten for the Academy’s groundbreaking, putting them into contract, and making it happen. We are so ready to rock right now – and I’m so happy you’re part of the journey!