Up to 480 students across Liberia will benefit from the USAID Excellence in Higher Education for Liberian Development (EHELD) 2013 Summer Program from July 15 to 26, 2013.
The program is held in six different camp sites provided by local high schools located in Bomi, Lofa, Bong, Nimba, Grand Bassa, and Grand Gedeh counties. Each camp can accommodate 80 high school students from the selected public and private schools per county. In the case of the St. Catholic High School program in Grand Bassa, the funding is provided by the Liberia Agricultural Company (LAC) through the EHELD public-private partnership building initiatives.
Focused on experiential learning, the program kicked off with a week-long Training of Trainers (TOT) workshop at Cuttington University in Bong County. Various participants from the University of Michigan, Peace Corps, University of Liberia, and University of Cuttington joined the workshop to share their knowledge of basic life skills, computer science, math, and career counseling in agriculture and engineering.
The Summer Start Program is run parallel with the Cuttington University Upward Bound Program, which serves sophomores, juniors, and seniors from high schools in Suakoko, Bong County. Meanwhile, the Summer Start Program specifically targets combined 80 in-coming students who will pursue Engineering at the University of Liberia and Agriculture at Cuttington University. Additionally, the EHELD will grant scholarships to approximately 100 students from these schools.
Furthermore, a sponsorship from the US Government through USAID has enabled EHELD to provide essential equipment such as computers and laboratory instruments to the aforementioned departments of the two universities.
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