History of Serve the Children

Purpose of Serve the Children
Serve the Children (STC) exists to improve the future of children by meeting their educational, emotional and physical needs in a Biblically based environment. STC provides tuition free education, one meal a day, basic medical care and counseling to needy children in the West African nation of Liberia. In central India, STC gives poor children from villages too small to have a public school the opportunity to attend a school in a larger village. They stay at a children’s home during the school year, where they are provided with free room and board, school supplies, clothing and medical care. STC also supports a few orphaned children in Indonesia, accepting private donations for Christian children that want to go to college who would not otherwise have access to a higher education.

The public education system is not free in Liberia and India. The children are required to wear school uniforms by law and the cost might be more than the total earnings the family makes in a month. Add to this the testing fees, school supplies and books, and a family earning from eighty cents to one dollar a day cannot afford to send their child to school. Because of subsistence living, they cannot afford to lose a productive member of the family for the sake of an education. For example, a ten year old child in India can earn one dollar a day working in the fields instead of going to school. That dollar pays for food the family would not otherwise be able to afford.

Liberia - All Gods Children Schools
by Dr. Doug Collier
The groundwork for Serve the Children began in 1996 when a Tacoma area photographer who was covering the civil war in Liberia returned home during a break in the fighting. He met with his brother and me, telling us stories about the estimated 30,000-40,000 war orphans in the capital city of Monrovia. These orphans had no opportunity to return to school because the educational system had been destroyed. The only option left to these children was to return to fighting.

The two brothers and I decided to create a 501(c) (3) organization in Tacoma, Washington and raise money to finance a free school for war orphans, ex-combatants and other children who were too poor to pay for school.  The organization was named All God’s Children The first All God’s Children school was opened in the capital city of Monrovia in 1997, and served 125 children.  Almost all of these children were ex-combatants. The vivid accounts told by these children are the kind of stories that people write books about and make into movies.

In 1999, three additional schools were opened in rural areas of Liberia.  A $100,000 grant was received from ADRA (Adventist Relief Agency) out of Sweden, which was used to build one site, remodel another, and rent two buildings. These funds were also used to pay for the staff and all of the supplies. Almost 4,000 children who had no other access to education were served during this time, receiving education, counseling and food. 

The schools stayed open except when they were forced to close due to fighting and looting. One of the rural schools was destroyed when fighting broke out in the area in 2000. Most of the staff except for one teacher were lost and STC never heard what happened to the children, only that they fled into the jungle. Another school was overrun in 2003, and when the conflict neared the capital in June of 2003, the remaining two schools were forced to close.

The schools were looted numerous times during the first six years of operation. The children used pieces of slate for their lessons, since paper was so hard to get and too expensive to buy. Slate also allowed for a portable school strategy in some very basic places when they had to move due to armed fighting.

After the war ended in August 2003, two schools were reopened. One school is in the Sinkor District of Monrovia, located on the beach of Atlantic Ocean. It has a three story building with approximately 1,500 square feet per floor, one small outbuilding with a couple of lean to additions, a latrine building, a well and a generator for electricity. Water for the school is drawn from a well located on the school grounds by a hand pump.

The classrooms are on the first two floors of the main building. The third floor has dormitory style bedrooms, two bathrooms and a dining room, and is used to house visiting mission teams. The kitchen and laundry area are both in lean to additions and the compound is surrounded by a fourteen foot wall. The classroom windows do not have glass in them. The windows had to be covered with bricks to help secure the school to prevent looting. The classrooms receive some light through slots in the bricks, but they are still very dark. Learning is difficult when trying to read in a dark environment and STC has plans to provide electric lighting when they have a consistent supply of electricity.

Two maximize space utilization; there are two sessions at the school in Monrovia. Both sessions combine to serve over 650 children. The morning session has children from pre-school through the sixth grade. Children through the ninth grade attend the afternoon session. Most of the classes have forty students.

There is also a rural school located at Gate 15 of the Firestone Rubber Tree Plantation. Firestone allows STC to use the building rent free, however it is very small. There are three classrooms that meet in a bamboo outbuilding and there is also a covered cooking area, a well and a latrine. Over 350 children are served at the 15 Gate School. There is no electricity or running water. 15 Gate is a crossroads about thirty miles from of Monrovia. This school is the only one in the area and some of the children walk three hours one way to get an education. The school’s staff estimates that there are 250 more school age children living in the surrounding community who have no access to education.

In 2006, two acres of land was purchased near the 15 Gate school. In 2007, plans for a building to house a larger school, a church and a medical clinic were prepared by a team of engineers from eMi. Volunteers from eMi fly to various countries and donate their time and skills to organizations such as STC that need building and site plans. STC is currently trying to raise $150,000 to fund the construction of this compound to better serve the people in the 15 Gate area.

The Mambahn Civil Compound School had to close due to the fighting in 2003. It was located in a very rural area of Liberia where there had never been a school. During the fighting it became too dangerous for the staff to go there.

I visited the site of this school in 2004 with an escort from the United Nations, since the area was not yet considered secure. The building had been completely destroyed. So great was the desire for education, however, that five classes were still meeting. They were found in a one room church of about 800 square feet. Over 100 children were crammed into this room, with separate blackboards for each of the classes. They had no supplies and the teachers did not have any textbooks. The teachers gathered their classes around a blackboard and the children memorized the lesson from the board. The teachers were the only hope that these children had for an education. It was a very emotional moment for me, as well as for the United Nations personnel.

STC recently received a $30,000 grant from a Belgian organization to rebuild this school. The school will be a small building consisting of 6 classrooms, offices for the teachers and principal, a well and a latrine. This school will re-open in September 2009 and serve over 150 students.

The two existing schools serve over 1,000 children, with forty paid Liberian staff members. Approximately 1,000 children are on the waiting list for the All God’s Children Schools. The Liberian Ministry of Education has rated the teachers as some of the best trained instructors in the country. They make around $85 US per month. There is also a full time Christian counselor on staff to help the children at both schools deal with the trauma they experienced during the war.

Many of the children witnessed atrocities against their families and friends. Some are ex-combatants who committed atrocities themselves. Since the fighting lasted fourteen years, most of these children have never experienced anything but war during their lives. Their bright eyes and smiles hide a lot of fear. They like to have visitors hold their hands and hug them. I enjoy making them laugh and just sitting with them. The older kids love to ask questions about life in the United States. Many of them go to a Liberian version of a movie theater, which is simply a darkened room with a television and a DVD player. For a small price, they can watch American movies.

It is sad that these children learn about America from Hollywood’s point of view. Their ideas of America are far from reality. They call Liberia ‘Little Hell,’ but America is ‘Little Heaven.’ The children see America as their only hope for a better life and many of them base this view on the Hollywood image they have of the United States. Through everything they do, it is STC’s goal to give these children hope for a better future for their lives in Liberia.

There is a full time nurse on staff to provide basic medical needs for the children and staff. The children need to be de-wormed regularly and thirty to forty children suffer from malaria each month. Several students die from malaria each year. Unhappily, there is no hope for a staff person or a child that has a major medical problem. Liberia does not have a functioning hospital that can handle surgeries, so the staff member or child dies if they have a major medical problem.

School children in Liberia are required by law to wear uniforms. Almost all of the children have only two changes of clothes; their school uniform and one other outfit. They have one pair of shoes, and they use these for school. Some of the children in the morning session share their shoes with children in the afternoon session. A few of them have one or two toys at home. They sleep on a mat on a mud or cement floor.

The children and staff members receive one meal a day at school. This might be the only meal the children eat that day. STC receives a type of wheat from the World Food Program which is supplemented with some fish or chicken for a more nutritious meal. The children are on their own to find food on the weekends. They eat whatever their families can provide, and some do not eat at all on weekends.

The schools operate with over forty Liberian staff which includes a principal at each school. The Country Director for All God’s Children Schools is Sackie Kwalalon, who is a Liberian national that has worked for STC since 1997. He is responsible for the operation of the schools and reports to the STC Board of Directors.

STC has achieved many things since operations began in Liberia in 1997. However, they must continually plan ahead. The government of Liberia is emphasizing education as their top goal. It is hoped that a free public school system will soon be in place inside the capital city of Monrovia. STC needs to start looking at moving outside the capital where the needs are just as great, or transitioning toward a vocational education system.

Previous short term mission teams have made a huge impact in the lives of the staff and children. Here are some of the accomplishments STC can build on as they look to the future in Liberia.


India - Ankoor Children’s Home

In 2004, All God’s Children combined operations with Serve the Children Coalition, a ministry for village children in India. The organization’s name was changed to Serve the Children while keeping the name All God’s Children for the Liberian schools. In India, STC partners with Hosanna Ministries and operates as the Ankoor Children’s Home (ACH).

The Ankoor Children’s Home is based in Lasina, which is located in central India. It is a very small village with two barbers, a couple of small one room stores, two tailors and a small elementary school. Yavatmal is the nearest town of any size and is located about twenty miles away, with a population of about 125,000 people. The nearest large city is Nagpur. The STC mission team flew to Nagpur from Bombay and drove 4 hours to get to Lasina when they visited in October 2007.

On the ACH campus, there is a guest house, boys’ and girls’ dormitories, a kitchen, a multipurpose room, a well, a water tank and a pump for running water. There is limited electrical power that does not operate on a regular schedule. ACH does have a small battery back up system and a generator for electrical needs when required. ACH is located on five acres that was donated to Hosanna Ministries by Kiron and Nalini Gaikwad, who operate the home.

At ACH, free housing, meals, medical care, school supplies and clothing are provided for children from villages too small to have a school. The children live at the home during the school year so they can attend a free public school in Lasina. Kiron, Nalini, their daughter and four other adult staff members run the home and care for the children, giving them spiritual guidance and training for life. Nalini is a nurse at the local government hospital in Yavatmal and she provides basic medical care to the children and staff. Many times Nalini has taken a very sick child to the hospital and they have treated the child without cost. The hospital has also donated medical supplies to ACH.

The children come from villages as far as 6 hours from Lasina by walking and riding a bus. They come from the lowest Hindu castes in India or from very poor tribal villages. Most of their homes are one room mud huts with tin or thatched roofs. When they first arrive at ACH, they are malnourished and covered with lice. Many are infested with intestinal worms and all of them need to be loved. Many of the children come from homes where both parents work all day in the fields to support their families. When the parents return home at night, they are tired and do not have time or energy to show their children affection or play with them.

At ACH the children’s day begins at 5:30am with some amazing devotions, eat breakfast, then do their chores and study. They attend school from 10:30am to 5:00pm Monday through Friday and on Saturday morning. Many other activities are provided for the children to help them develop into well rounded adults with life skills. These activities include games, singing and skits, and lessons in sewing, haircutting and gardening.

The ACH children return to their villages and tell their parents that they only want to have one God worshipped in their mud huts. They are witnesses to their families and their friends. Some of their teachers at the local Hindu public school are anti-Christian, but they have told the STC mission team members that the children from the Ankoor Children’s Home are the best behaved and strongest academic students at the school.

The children keep their entire store of belongings in small metal footlockers. They might have two pairs of flip flops, an extra pair of pants and shirt or dress (other than their school uniform) and possibly one toy. It is depressing to look into these footlockers, but they are very proud of what they have. They have never had much, and they are being taught the great lesson of being thankful to God for what they do have.

Serving the Children
STC provides the only educational opportunities available to the children in the areas where they operate. This is a heavy responsibility and many decisions must be made. There are hundreds of children on the waiting list in Liberia, for example. They are being denied an education if quality for the few is stressed too highly over quantity for the many. Education changes the world one child at a time, but STC’s donors expect results, and the organization must be result based for as many children as possible.

Considering the great education need, wise decisions on allocating resources must be made. Regardless of the difficulty in choosing allocation of resources, the local staff should make the call as much as possible. Learning to choose wisely is one way to help in-country staff develop into the leaders their country needs. Since one of the goals is to help native Liberians become self sufficient, they must be given room to grow.

There are many more needy children in the villages of Central India that STC can serve. However, many families cannot send their children to live at the Ankoor Children’s Home for the ten months of the school year. The children are needed to work in the fields to help support their families. Other families are able to send their children and want them to come, but ACH needs additional funding to support their needs.

Funding for STC operations comes from many sources. Over 115 children are sponsored at $25 per month. There are approximately 10 staff members that are also sponsored at $50 per month. Several churches and schools contribute to the needs and there are two yearly fundraisers that bring in about $20,000. A few small grants have been received, but the majority of STC budget support comes from general donations.

God has shown his goodness by providing the funds necessary for STC to give these children hope and a future. In addition to meeting their physical and educational needs, STC’s goal is to see them come to Christ and have an impact for the Lord in their families and communities. STC desires to help the children grow into positive and productive adults who make valuable contributions to their society. Through all STC does, they are also training the future leaders of Liberia and India.

Download a copy of this history, including a brief history of Liberia

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