Internet Access at Mohomou Refugee School
Alex KA Adjei, born to a tribe called Kru in Liberia, is now director of Respect Vocational School and coordinator for RESPECT International in Guinea N'Zrekore Forest Region.
He was doing his third year of university study when war broke out in his country. The war took away his parents, siblings and other relatives. Even after his supreme loss he moved on, migrating to Boussou, Guinea. There he helped to set up a refugee school and has since been actively involved in refugee children education.
He is now working as the principal of the Mohomou Refugee School at N'Zerekore and has been part of a wonderful accomplishment recently.
With cooperation from Marc Schaeffer, president of RESPECT International and Samuel Boateng, Alex has managed to set up a computer centre for the school with internet connectivity.
Samuel initiated the processing for the computer resource centre through the RESPECT International Letter Exchange program together with his pen pal Judy Huynh from the USA.
Students from the Mohomou School and Judy's class participated in the Letter Exchange program. Later, Judy's class raised funds to help them purchase the computers. Alex says the whole project was successful due to help and participation of Marc and the student community at his school.
Alex and his team faced a lot of problems initially to get a place to set up the centre and also with the delivery of the computers from the port as some items were lost or taken away.
Getting a generator and fuel to support the computers was a big issue as well. Then there was the worry of who would provide financial support to run the computer resource centre.
Apart from the logistical problems there was also the issue of training the refugee students, most of whom had never seen a computer before. The parents of the students also made their contribution to its success by coming up with useful ideas to train the students and to get the centre up and running.
Alex feels that the advent of the internet connectivity at the school has helped to make communication very smooth and easy for all the refugees. It has also helped to lessen his work.
The students now feel a part of the rest of the world and can now have fast and easy communication with their pen friends. The internet connectivity also gives them the opportunity for distance learning and to do online courses.
The computer centre and the internet access have opened the door to new options and opportunities for communication and learning.
We all hope this is the beginning of a very bright future for the student community at the Mohomou Refugee School.