Students of the Allen Bryant Memorial Institute

Providing quality education is a major hurdle in Liberia where majority of students come from indigent homes and communities. But this has not prevented well-intentioned educators from laboring hard to give poor children a respectable schooling.

One of the institutions on this path, in the face of huge financial difficulties, to give meaningful education to poor children is Allen Bryant Memorial Institute (ABMI), a school that runs from nursery to junior high and is located in Chocolate City, just outside the Liberian capital, Monrovia.

In existence now for more than 16 years,  ABMI, whose principal is Moses D. Tolborh, has been a beacon of hope for hundreds of poor children, including orphans.

Mr. Tolborh, in an recent interview with Nordic Africa News, said the tuition-free school is encountering a number of problems with the most urgent been of a financial nature.

“There is an urgent need for support. The children are hungry, the chairs are damaged, the roof is leaking, teachers have not taking pay for the past fifteen months. Some of them left. We have some volunteer teachers remaining,” Mr. Tolborh said. 

He spoke of plans to improve the quality of learning for the school’s 213 students by building a library and computer lab but that there are no financial means to pursue those objectives.

“We will make good use of a library and a computer lab to improve the ability  of our students, we really need assistance to achieve this goal,” he noted.