About the Elizabeth Blunt School, Monrovia

In 1990, the West African country of Liberia was plunged into the turmoil of civil war.  Newspapers no longer appeared, radio stations went off the air.  Soon the only news Liberians had of what was going on in their own country came from the BBC, and from its West Africa correspondent at the time, Elizabeth Blunt.  She rapidly became such a well-known voice that at she had a primary school called after her.  But it wasn't until early 2004 that she and her colleagues made their first direct contact with the school.

Read the account of that first visit, by Mark Doyle and Dan McMillan, on the BBC website.

Elizabeth herself didn't see the school until August 2005, when she visited it along with Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, who took most of the photographs on this site. On her return to London she told the story on the BBC Programme, 'From Our Own Correspondent':

"The first time I saw my school the rain was coming down in torrents.  We'd inched our way through Monrovia's port area, past UN checkpoints, zig-zagging round the potholes..  Eventually we turned off to the right at  Chocolate City Junction.  I had been warned the road was 'sandy'.  That must have been in the dry season.  Now it was liquid mud.  We lurched and splashed our way down the road.  Finally, there it was -- a neatly painted signboard; Elizabeth Blunt School; and underneath, its motto -- Education, the Soundest Investment. But the little block of classrooms was shuttered end empty; it was school holidays. A women appeared at the next door house.  "Good morning", I said.  "My name's Elizabeth Blunt."  "Yes, yes," she said.  This Elizabeth Blunt.  Elizabeth Blunt School."  "No," I said. "it's me. I'M Elizabeth Blunt."

The first word I had of this school came shortly after I finished reporting from West Africa, in 1991, a letter saying some people were planning to start a school and did I mind if they called it by my name.  I replied that I would be honoured, and waited for more news.  But what had seemed like an end to the fighting was only a brief pause, the school owner, the teachers and the pupils were scattered by the fighting.  It was only in 1998 that the school got going again, and only at the beginning of the last year that a letter finally came with an photo and the address in Chocolate City. 

Once we'd sorted out the confusion, the woman introduced herself as Esther, the proprietor's wife and school cook, and arranged for me to come back and meet her husband and the staff.  Two days later the sun was shining, and all the staff and a pile of children had turned out to meet me.  I saw the seven little classrooms -- concrete walls, mud floors and just a few sticks of furniture.  The children had to bring their own stools, I was told, or else the teachers piled up bamboo stems, and the children perched on top. Most of the classrooms had new tin roofs -- thanks to kind colleagues who visited the school earlier.  The last two still leaked.  So did the kitchen, a little bamboo and tarpaulin shack where Esther cooks lunch for more than two hundred children a day.  The food -- bulgar wheat and beans -- comes from the UN school feeding programme, and there are greens from her own garden, but the UN are threatening to stop the rations unless the school upgrades the kitchen.  The Red Cross gave them a few tables, UNICEF a kit of chalks and pencils and note books.  But like so much in Africa this little school defies financial gravity.   The figures don't even begin to add up, but it's still there and teaching.

Liberians are proud of being Africa's oldest independent republic, but most of their governments have been spectacularly useless, so they have a robust tradition of getting together and doing things for themselves.  The school's proprietor, James Mamulu, was working abroad when war broke out in Liberia in 1990, and he came home to get his family out -- only to be trapped himself by the fighting.  All the schools were closed, so when things quietened down a bit he started a little do-it-yourself school for his own children and grandchildren and the children of his neighbours in Chocolate City. A few months later the war came back and they were right in the line of fire; the Mamulus fled so quickly they didn't even have time to bury a relative's body before they went.  They went to Lofa County, near the Guinea border, but the war followed them there too.  Only in 1998 were they able to come home.

There was still no school for the children, and most people had no jobs.  Given the choice between teaching for no pay, or doing nothing at all, local teachers rallied round.  The school began to take shape again.  Now it teaches around two hundred and fifty students, including a few former child soldiers, children from the local displaced peoples camp, and a forty three year old women, who joined the second grade class to learn to read and write.  Some can afford to pay school fees; most can't.  It's registered and recognised by the ministry of education, and  the children have begun to take public examinations. 

My morning in Chocolate City was a great delight.  Although it's grown the school still has a family feel, and  despite the difficulties its staff are serious. As for the children, when I produced a big bag of lollies, they came forward politely one by one, the smallest at the front, then whooped with glee when they discovered the lolly sticks were also whistles.  The Elizabeth Blunt School is a credit to all of them, and I'm proud to share its name."

Elizabeth, Mark, Dan and Ofeibea have now set up the Friends of the Elizabeth Blunt School. Click here for more information, the latest news from the school and suggestions about how you too can help.