By Paul Lane/lanep@gnnewspaper.com
Imagine having to sell yourself — in sixth grade — to pay for your education.
That’s what Ken Krieger hopes to prevent from happening in Sierra Leone with the efforts of his group, EduNations.
Krieger, a psychologist for the Niagara Falls School District, got involved in the issues of the African nation after working there to help resettle refugees in the early part of this decade. He and his wife ended up adopting two children from there, but he still felt there was more he could do.
“I was looking at them and thinking, ‘Gosh, there are millions left behind,’ ” he said.
So he returned to Sierra Leone in 2004 to see how he could help. He determined that building schools would help the nation’s children get the foundation they needed.
In Sierra Leone, he said, children have to pay for their own books and meals, and if their village doesn’t have a school, they must pay to live in the nearest area that has one. Seeing as many families don’t have the means to do so, children sometimes have to resort to prostitution to get their education, he said.
After returning from his fact-finding mission, Krieger went about raising the $24,000 needed to build an elementary school there. The Niagara Falls teachers union, which has taken part in fundraisers for other causes such as Hurricane Katrina relief, helped raise about $10,000 of that.
“Something had to be done,” union President Joe Catalano said.
District officials were amazed to hear at a recent board meeting that just donating a few dollars each would accumulate enough funds for another building.
“It’s amazing that in this country where we have so much, it takes so little to make such a huge difference,” Superintendent Carmen Granto said.
About 240 children were enrolled in the school when it opened this past fall, where they receive an education and one hot meal a day for free. The school also acts as a social center where adults can receive health service and vocational training.
The next step is to build a secondary school for grades seven through 12 where these students can continue what they’ve started, Krieger said.
“If we don’t set up a secondary school for these children, we pretty much set them up for a life of theft and prostitution,” he said.
Krieger will return to Sierra Leone this summer to assess the project, he said. He hopes to have work begin soon thereafter.
Though uncertain how far EduNations’ work will go, Krieger hopes that the people his group is helping will learn to help themselves.
“It’s one thing to go over there as a rich American and hand out money,” he said. “It’s another to go over there and hand out the tools so that they can help themselves.”
