A New Dimension of Hope Filling Educational Gaps in Liberia

Africa Agen­da

Ebenez­er Nor­man, founder of a New Dimen­sion of Hope receives a dona­tion from Stacey Bush in sup­port of his organization.

The African nation of Liberia, locat­ed on the West­ern Coast of the con­ti­nent is not­ed for the Ebo­la epi­dem­ic that severe­ly impact­ed the coun­try in 2014, as well as a civ­il war that claimed thou­sands of lives and dis­placed mil­lions of peo­ple in the 1990s and 2000s. The sor­row­ful images of dis­ease and war linger on. But cit­i­zens of the demo­c­ra­t­ic nation, many of them who escaped the tur­moil and insta­bil­i­ty and now liv­ing abroad, have not giv­en up on their nation.

Ebenez­er Nor­man, founder of Den­ver-based non-prof­it A New Dimen­sion of Hope is one of many Liberi­ans work­ing to fill the gaps in girls’ and wom­en’s edu­ca­tion in the nation of about 5 mil­lion peo­ple. He is a grad­u­ate of Reg­is Uni­ver­si­ty in Denver. 

At a din­ner event on May 14th at the Dou­ble­Tree Hotel in South­east Auro­ra, Nor­man bemoaned why he was born in what he described as one of the poor­est coun­tries in the world. “Why was I born in one of the poor­est coun­tries in the world,” he won­dered out loud. The event was designed to raise funds to sup­port his goal to add three more class­rooms and a cafe­te­ria to a school he con­struct­ed in the Mehmet town in Liberia. A lot of his fel­low Liberi­ans are repeat­ing the ben­e­fits of edu­ca­tion through lit­er­ary train­ing, he told the audience. 

Before Mehmeh, the Uber and Lift dri­ver turned phil­an­thropist, built oth­er schools, includ­ing a school in Troy­ah town, which he said was recent­ly demol­ished because of prop­er­ty dis­putes with the gov­ern­ment. He said his activ­i­ties are meant to ful­fill his goal of pro­vid­ing uni­ver­sal pri­ma­ry edu­ca­tion to girls espe­cial­ly, some­thing the gov­ern­ment is unable to realize. 

Nor­man said there is per­haps a rea­son why he is so pas­sion­ate about work­ing with the Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty in far-away Col­orado to bring change to Liberia. Cit­ing the late Nel­son Man­dela of South Africa and Mahat­ma Gand­hi of India, he talked about one person’s deter­mi­na­tion that can change the for­tunes of an entire community.

On hand to sup­port the efforts were lead­ers from the local com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing Stacey Bush, edu­ca­tor, and a prin­ci­pal at Glob­al Vil­lage Acad­e­my in Colorado.

‘These chal­lenges exist every­where, includ­ing here in the Unit­ed States,” Bush said. While hand­ing an enve­lope with finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions from her stu­dents and com­mu­ni­ty to Nor­man, Bush said they want­ed to learn, grow and con­tribute and build a school in Liberia.

Also, on hand to sup­port these edu­ca­tion­al efforts was Priscil­la Rahn, an edu­ca­tor who is also the vice-chair of the Col­orado Repub­li­can Party.

“You see, edu­ca­tion and oppor­tu­ni­ty go hand in hand,” Rahn said. “Let’s work togeth­er on the issue of edu­ca­tion. A woman’s edu­ca­tion can make a world of difference.”

The event, which includ­ed an arts and crafts sale, was attend­ed by an esti­mat­ed 150 peo­ple, includ­ing Liberi­ans in Col­orado and politi­cians from the state.