Serving Sierra Leone

Serving Sierra Leone:

DR. DEEN’S MISSION TO REBUILD A NATION

Sixty years ago, one of the preeminent educational systems in the world was centered on the west coast of Africa, in the nation of Sierra Leone. Its chief university, the University of Sierra Leone, was dubbed the “Athens of West Africa.” In the intervening years since the nation gained independence from Great Britain, though, education fell on hard times: government neglect, an erosion of standards, and declining enrollment. Then, from 1991 to 2002, civil war devastated the West African nation of Sierra Leone.

Dr. Archie Deen, the Upper School’s social sciences teacher and a native of Sierra Leone, lived in London at the time of the Sierra Leone civil war and monitored the unfolding conflict with horror. “I was an active campaigner for peace in Sierra Leone and for awareness of the war,” Dr. Deen said, showing a reply from the Queen to a letter campaign he led. “I wrote letters to 10 Downing Street [official residence of the British prime minister] and raised funds for war relief for children.” Through the “Walk for Sierra Leone,” a twelve-mile walk through Central London, Archie and his supporters were able to raise thousands of pounds for Catholic Relief Services and the Sisters of Charity, both working in Sierra Leone.

In the intervening years since the end of the war and the reestablishment of a democratic government, Sierra Leone has wrestled to rebuild itself. Children conscripted as soldiers into rebel armies struggle with psychological trauma. The country faces high unemployment, especially among young people. Fifty-three percent of its citizens live in poverty.

Medical care is not readily accessible to most Sierra Leoneans, particularly in rural areas, which also suffer from limited access to safe drinking water.

Dr. Deen believes that teachers can reclaim their nation’s educational prestige and lead the country forward. In 2017, Dr. Deen and his colleagues founded Teach for Development Sierra Leone (TfDSL), a nonprofit corporation dedicated to the professional development and welfare of teachers in primary and secondary schools in Sierra Leone. “We believe that the most potent resource of Sierra Leone, her children, can become the engine of social, political, and economic transformation,” said Dr. Deen, “if the teachers of our schools, are themselves highly knowledgeable, skilled and motivated.”

The infrastructure of education, though, was another victim of the civil war. The war resulted in the destruction of 1,270 primary schools, and in 2001, 67% of all school-age children were out of school. The republic’s literacy rate stands at 48.1%; among women, the rate drops to just 37%. New disasters continue to hamper development: a massive Ebola outbreak in 2014 closed all schools for months. “The teachers of Sierra Leone are deep in the trenches of the economic, social, and political challenges of the country,” Dr. Deen wrote for a study on the state of teaching in Sierra Leone. “The teachers, in service to the nation of Sierra Leone, confront the social and economic realities of living and working in a developing economy.”

The teaching profession in Sierra Leone is poorly resourced. There are, nonetheless, committed men and women dedicated to teaching the country’s young population – even under the most unfavorable of conditions. A teacher in Sierra Leone’s capital reported an annual salary of just under $2,000 - from which he provides for his wife and three children, pays rent, provides meals and pays his children’s tuition, healthcare and transportation.

Teach for Development Sierra Leone seeks to equip these underresourced teachers with professional knowledge and financial resources. In 2017, Dr. Deen and TfD held their first Teacher Institute at the Annie Walsh Memorial School, Freetown. At this Institute, forty primary and secondary school teachers were reskilled in mathematics, science, and English. They were introduced to pedagogical and cognitive theories and strategies of differentiation, critical thinking and problemsolving, and encouraged to adopt a more student-centered approach to teaching and learning. Teachers are awarded a stipend at the end of the program, “but even more critically,” Dr. Deen says, “they revisit and extend their knowledge in the core subjects, form new alliances with fellow teachers in Freetown, and begin to plan their lessons for the coming school year.”

Teach for Development repeated their workshop in July 2018. More than doubling their enrollment, ninety teachers were retrained, and training in CPR and First Aid was added to the curriculum. UNICEF Sierra Leone presented a session on gender violence against girls and women. In 2019, the program looks to expand to two locations and three separate workshops to retrain 250 teachers.

Holy Spirit Prep supports the work of Teach for Development. In fall 2018, with Dr. Deen as adviser, a group of students formed the Cantius Society, after St. John Cantius, a patron saint of teachers. The student organization fundraises for Teach for Development. “Bake sales, selling Chick-Fil-A milkshakes at lunch – all the proceeds go directly to TfD’s summer programs, for food for the teachers, books they need,” said Sophia John, student co-president of the Cantius Society. “Having good teachers in your early years is so important. Children need those role models – and not having resources shouldn’t hinder those who want to teach.” William Arnold, who joined Cantius in its nascent stages as co-president, said “Education is the foundation of society. The more you can maximize it, the better. You can build up teachers; you can really help them grow.”

And that growth, Dr. Deen hopes, will shape the future of a nation.

Dr. Deen supports the reconstruction of Sierra Leone in other ways. An alumnus of Christ the King College (a secondary Catholic school outside Freetown) Dr. Deen is actively involved in fundraising efforts for the school’s rebuilding, staffing, and scholarship funds for students. “The school reshaped my understanding of the world, it grounded me in who I am. Those of us in the diaspora are working hard to rebuild,” Dr. Deen said.

Dr. Deen also supports programs in Atlanta, including a free SAT preparation program in Stone Mountain that draws resident families from Sierra Leone.

To support Teach for Development, contact Dr. Archie Deen at adeen@holyspiritprep.org.