By Charles Gbaryor, maorethason1997@gmail.com
HARPER, Liberia- Maryland County Senator, J. Gbe-bo Brown has dedicated several projects estimated at US$55,000 in Karluway, Electoral district#3, Maryland County, which is 381 kilometers southeast of Monrovia.
The dedicatory ceremony recently brought together local officials, including County Superintendent George A. Prowd; Assistant Superintendent for Fiscal Affairs Anthony W. Bedell; Statutory Superintendent Samuel Johnny, traditional chiefs and elders, youths, women groups, and students, amongst others.
Speaking in Yobloken, Sen. Brown expressed excitement for the projects that include a modern elementary school, a wooden bridge connecting Yobloken to other towns, and steel mills to three towns alongside the Cavalla River as his way of giving back to his people.
He narrated that on numerous occasions when he visited those areas while serving as superintendent before becoming senator, students turned out to receive him, but their principals always lamented poor learning conditions.
He said despite the age of Liberia (over 174 years), it was regrettable to have seen school principals complaining about the learning conditions of their pupils, thus drawing his attention to have undertaken the school project.
He noted that though the students are meeting up with the Ministry of Education lesson policy, the area of learning has degraded the standard of learning.
Sen. Brown stressed that it’s always good to provide a comfortable learning environment for students because from among them could be a future president, speaker, senator, representative, and superintendent.
“So Mr. Principal, I have completed this modern elementary school and these bags contain copybooks and they are 450 pieces but out of the 450, the students have 400 and the rest which is 50 is for the instructors,” he explained.
Despite the elementary school, the principal had informed the Maryland County Lawmaker years back that the bridge connecting the town to nearby towns had broken down, making it difficult for the school to receive food packages from the World Food Programme (WFP).
Mr. Brown said as Senator, his plans are twofold: infrastructure and livelihood development so he decided to do a twin- project for the people of Karluway district.
“So you see, I am doing infrastructure development throughout this entire county while at the same time, I am carrying on livelihood development which includes microloans for my people in order to put food on their table.”
“So last year, we had a Karluway conference that had two major objectives, one was to unify the people of Karluway due to land conflicts in the district and the second objective was to plant in the minds of our colleagues’ self-development.”
Sen. Brown added that during the conference citizens requested mills, a bridge, and primary school, so he pledged to have executed these projects.
“Let me say thanks to my town people because those materials were transported safely and to continue, I have brought some set of jerseys for the people of Gbon, Yobloken, and Yorken so after this program those of you from Gbon, Yobloken, and Yorken kindly come collect your jerseys,” Sen. Brown added.
Meanwhile, Sen. Gleh-bo Brown has also presented a newly enacted law establishing the Maryland Vocational Training Institute (MVTI) to the county.
Meeting scores of citizens at Pleebo City Hall in Pleebo district, the Senator said he was pleased to present hard copies of the Maryland Vocational Training Institute Act of 2020, which was crafted by him.
He said his quest for the establishment of the MVTI is in fulfillment of constitutional provisions that call for equal access to educational opportunities and the importance of sound technical and vocational education in meeting strategic labor demands.
He said the institute will help address the county’s human resource challenges and create employment opportunities for young people to boost inclusive growth and sustainable development in Liberia.
In response, Superintendent George A. Prowd hailed the Maryland Senator for the projects dedicated and urged the citizens to utilize the facilities wisely.
Karloken Statutory District Superintendent Samuel Johnny noted that works done in the district by Senator Brown cannot be overemphasized.
He described the initiatives as being in fulfillment of the government’s Pro-poor agenda, adding that the people of his district have been worrying about such a facility to improve the learning quality of their children.