RPCV Teacher Workshops in Sierra Leone
Judy Lamm Figi                     
Friends of Sierra Leone 
RPCV Sierra Leone, 1964-1966

Since 2004 I have returned to Sierra Leone every summer to help rebuild the education system that was destroyed in the war.  During the past six years I, along with other Sierra Leone RPCVs, have conducted teacher workshops for primary and secondary teachers, many of whom have little or no training and lack basic literacy skills.  We have focused on integrating literacy into the curriculum and making teaching materials from local resources.

Judy Lamm Figi attended UW-Madison and graduated in 1964 with a B.Mus. degree and in 1968 with a M. Mus. degree.  Her master's thesis was "Musical Instruments of Sierra Leone."  From 1964 to 1966 she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Moyamba, Siera Leone, where she taught music and French at a girls' secondary school. From 1966-68 she worked with Professor Lyndon Harries to produce his Swahili  grammar. From 1968 to 2004 Lamm Figi taught music at all levels in the Janesville area.  She am a freelance musician performing in the southern Wisconsin area. She also serves on the board of Friends of Sierra Leone and has been Advocacy Chair for many years. Since 2005 she has been involved in teacher training projects in Sierra Leone every summer. She is a Certified Literacy Tutor and teaches English as a Second Language to students in Janesville.  She also speaks French and Sierra Leonean Krio.

 

The Third Goal
Mary Kay Diakite
African Services Committee
RPCV Mali 1996-1998

Since serving in the Peace Corps, I have found myself working with African regufees and immigrants in the U.S. My language skills  (French and Bambara) as well as my deep knowledge of the Muslim faith--due to my Peace Corps experience--have allowed me to break stereotypes and educate mainstream Americans about West Africa and Islam.  The skills and experiences that Peace Corps afforded me have brought me to my very specialized profession: serving African refugees and immigrants living with HIV.

Mary Kay Diakite is a Ph.D. candidate at Rutgers University School of Social Work, focusing on Social Policy with a specialty in immigration policy and anti-terror legislation.  She is fluent in French and Bambara. Currently, she works as a Family Social Worker for African immigrants living with HIV/AIDS in New York City.  For the last nine years, she has been working with refugees, immigrants, asylum seekers, survivors of torture and detainees.  She has run school-based programs for regugee and immigrant children in three public school districts.  After 9/11, she was recruited to work with Arab, Muslim, and South Asian communities in Northern New Jersey and witnessed first-hand the backlash perpetrated on these communities.  A former Peace Corps Volunteer, she served in Mali, West Africa from 1996-1998. She has spent the last three summers conducting Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP): cross-border conflict resolution workshops in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Rwanda.

 

Full Circle: From Peace Corps service in the 1960s to a non-profit to help in Liberia today
Judy Reed
Liberian Assistance Program
RPCV Liberia 1964-1966

My presentation will tell about the non-profit a friend and I formed three years ago after visiting former students I had taught as a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960s in Liberia. I will share how we got started, what projects we are doing and how others can do what we have done. So far, we are building a seven-room elementary school, sending a Liberian student to college in Ghana, providing tuition for elementary school students and helping in the village where I served. We have raised more than $50,000, from friends and through small grants.

After graduating from the University of Oklahoma in 1964, Judy Reed joined the Peace Corps and served as a teacher in a small village in Liberia for two years. When she returned home, I attended Northwestern University, earning a master's degree in journalism. She then worked as a reporter for the Delta Democrat-Times in Greenville, Mississippi and later moved to Madison where she worked at UW-Extension. Reed was the director of the Program Information Office at UW-Madison, from 1996-2004. She served on the Dane County Board of Supervisors from 1986-92 and was chair of the Dane County Commission on Aging.