The Liberian Women’s Roundtable, a group of women leaders from across the Twin Cities, is calling on Liberian parents to get involved in their children’s school success.  During the month of September, as schools around the state open again, the group hopes to raise awareness about the needs of Liberian youth and parents. The Liberian Women’s Roundtable, which works in partnership with The Advocates for Human Rights, will be handing out surveys throughout the community, to gather information about the challenges facing Liberian parents when it comes to getting involved with their child’s school program.
 
Coming from a variety of backgrounds and professions, Roundtable members decided to take the first step in raising this issue in the community. After researching the issue and considering their own experiences, the group realized that there was little data available that described how many Liberian students are in a given school or district because Liberians are generally included with “African-Americans” in any data collection. So the Roundtable created a survey to gather information from parents about how many children are in which schools and about the experiences that parents have had interacting with their child’s school.

The women hope to hear from as many Liberian parents as possible, and have created a paper survey and an online version. Liberians can participate in the survey by going to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Liberian-Parent-Involvement. Members of the Roundtable will be distributing surveys in churches, mosques, stores, beauty salons, and at community events to gather information from Liberians from all walks of life.
 
Many Liberian youth are struggling to reach the highest possible levels of success in school.  Liberian parents confront many barriers to helping their children succeed.  Many parents must work multiple jobs to support family here in the U.S. as well as back in West Africa.

Cultural differences related to parenting style and the role of schools also are a challenge to Liberian parents’ involvement. Even Liberian parents who have been in the U.S. for many years confront barriers because they didn’t have the experience of growing up in the U.S. system.  The Liberian Women’s Roundtable hopes that by raising awareness they can bring the community together to develop programs that will support Liberian parents and help students succeed. 

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CONTACT:
For more information about the Liberian Women’s Roundtable or to set up media interviews with group members, call Laura Young at 612-341-3302, ext. 128.

source:advrights.org