Information and knowledge could have helped immensely in curbing the spread of the Ebola Virus in the West African Countries hit by the deadly virus. Thousands of lives were lost due to ignorance of how the disease spread - ignorance largely caused by illiteracy. In addition, illiteracy is one of the greatest barriers to development of the same West African countries in general. Literacy is therefore a key to preventing diseases as well as for development.

CARD Europe focuses on promoting and supporting literacy through the education of children in primary and secondary schools in Liberia and Sierra Leone. We promote literacy by working directly with parents, schools and teachers and encouraging community involvement in education. We work in both the rural and urban areas, seeking ways to improve retention in school and learning outcomes for underprivileged children.

CARD Europe promotes literacy in partnership with our sister organization CARD Sierra Leone and Kids Educational Engagement Project (KEEP) that are currently promoting literacy in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

KEEP is currently completing both a Reading room and a Computer room project at this tuition free school, while CARD Sierra Leone has completed their youth centre in Freetown. Both seek to provide access to computers and books for more than 200 children each. By exposing the children to books and to computers at early age, we believe it will enhance their education and school work along with computer and internet skills.

Targeted groups:

The project aims at targeting 200 children between the ages 10-19 who are currently enrolled at a tuition free community school that has been adopted by KEEP, and 200 children and young adults between the ages of 13-21 at the new youth program of CARD Sierra Leone.

For the support of our local partners KEEP and CARD Sierra Leone, we have been blessed with a donation of more than 50 complete refurbished desktop PC sets, printers, more than 20 laptops, as well as hardware from our donor Fair Norge. In addition, we have received a number of boxes filled with English books for all ages from the fleemarket arranged by Høvik, Blommenholm and Løkeberg school band, Norway.