Atlantans to Build School in West Africa

St Marcus Academy, a specialized school is to be built in the town of Obo-Kwahu, which is in the Eastern administrative region of Ghana. The school will focus on the building trades, agriculture, and the small-scale industry. An emphasis will be placed on housing construction, economics, botany, and production for exports. The aim of the project is to generate regional economic growth amongst the rural population of Africa.

The school is named in honor of one of our greatest organizers, Marcus Mosiah Garvey. The curriculum offers an African-oriented approach and has been structured to offer exchange opportunities for skilled Ghanaian expatriates and African-Americans. The project features a commercial trade component that has already received backing by local entrepreneurs. An Atlanta based non-profit organization, the Kwanzaa Academy of Arts and Occupational Sciences, is managing fundraising and the construction of the school.

The general public is being given an opportunity to discuss the project at a town hall meeting to be held on December 5 at the Research Library on African-American Culture in Atlanta, Georgia.

“Help Homeland Rebuild”... Archbishop Francis tells Liberians in US

by Asenta Reporter

The Catholic Archbishop of Liberia, The Most Rev. Michel Kpakala Francis has called on Liberians in the United States to mobilize all their human and financial resources to help their war-torn country. The Archbishop made the call when he addressed a group of Liberians in New York recently.

Speaking at the Horrace Mann Auditorium, Teachers College, Columbia University, the Archbishop said that while recovery of the Liberian economy will be slow and difficult, Liberians in the United States can help the process by going back to Liberia to assist in various capacities. He told the audience that even though the security situation has improved and press freedom seems to be emerging gradually, "there still exists a culture of arrogance and impunity" at certain levels of government. The political legacy of corruption remains intact with a bloated bureaucracy; Civil Service salaries are extremely low, and there is an absence of electricity, water,  basic infrastructure, and regrettably the flight of entrepreneurial capital.

The religious leader also mentioned that Liberia needs a mini-Marshall Plan and financial assistance from the international community, to rebuild. Notwithstanding all of these problems, Archbishop Francis said, "Liberia is our country and there is no place like home." 

The speaking function for the Archbishop at Columbia University was organized by the Cathedral School (Monrovia) Alumni Association in the United States. In a brief welcome statement, Robert Schwarz, Chair of the Alumni Educational Foundation, described Archbishop Francis as a champion for human rights in Liberia before, during and since the civil war. Though his actions placed his life in jeopardy, he established a Radio Veritas and the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, and continued to speak out for justice, peace and reconciliation. Archbishop Francis was in the United States to receive the 1999 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.