Washougal School Board member helps Liberian youth education group

Chuck Carpenter may have retired from the education industry, but his desire to cultivate and expand children’s minds has yet to fade.

The Washougal resident and longtime community volunteer contributes to the well-being of local students in several ways. He serves as a member of the Washougal School Board and volunteers as an elementary school music teacher. Lately, however, Carpenter’s desire to help children has reached far beyond Washougal’s borders.

According to the Gabanja International Volunteer Program (GIVP), a nonprofit organization that provides educational opportunities to poverty-stricken residents of Liberia, located on the west coast of Africa, Carpenter, one of GIVP’s board members, is “an incredible example of strength, compassion and wisdom.”

Carpenter said his main role with the group has been advising GIVP leaders about “the legal stuff, the board of directors, (taking meeting) minutes, setting up a bank account” and other managerial types of responsibilities.

“What I’m really hoping to do is plant seeds to help them get started,” Carpenter said.

Liberia resident Emmanuel Balo founded GIVP when he was 16 years old, wanting “to do something for underprivileged people, (financially) handicapped people, kids who couldn’t read,” according to Carpenter.

“Then he got some high school friends to tutor little kids in a couple of communities,” Carpenter said. “In Liberia, the literacy rate is 60 percent, because the ‘public’ schools charge tuition and there’s a huge caste difference (between) people who have money and a whole lot of people in poverty who can’t afford to send their kids to school. They don’t have a shot.”

After a while, however, Balo’s friends left for other pursuits, temporarily leaving the future of the organization at a crossroads.

“(They) abandoned the vision,” Balo wrote on the organization’s website. “They wanted to get instant rewards, in terms of cash or other things, from their voluntary services, which I could not afford during that time. So they stopped, and they withdrew their membership from this institution. But I remain … motivated by some other high-profile individuals like Myles Munroe, Nelson Mandela and other great leaders and humanitarians.”

Carpenter connected with Balo via Facebook around 2021.

“He saw a post that I’d done, or I saw a post that he’d done,” Carpenter recalled. “Anyway, one of us reached out, and then we just started a conversation, and I learned more. We’ve gotten a lot of face time, to the point where, for the last couple of years, I have talked with him literally daily, sometimes twice a day — more than I would like, to be honest. But he has a need.”

Carpenter first sent Balo money to pay for tutors, then gradually became more and more involved with the organization.

“Since he incorporated, I told him that he has to have a board of directors,” Carpenter said. “So he went and and recruited the director of the state library system and a dean of the local college and a couple other people. I’m on the board — long-distance of course. The board has met a couple of times. It’s really not a functioning board, but on paper, he’s got a corporation and he’s got a board. That’s where they are right now.”

The organization hired four tutors to teach basic reading and math skills to 100 children in 2023 and 2024, according to Carpenter.

“(The tutors receive) $25 a month to teach a class of 25 kids. There’s four of them, so for $100 a month, we teach 100 kids,” he said. “In Liberia, they have communities that are formalized with community leaders, and they usually have a meeting site, so that’s the facility they use.”

The makeshift school has dirt floors, benches for students to sit on and some chalkboards and chalk, Carpenter said.

“They do simple sums, and they learn the alphabet, and go from there,” he explained.

Carpenter called the organization’s second educational cycle, which ended in July, “really successful.”

“They had a celebration at the end of the year,” he said. “The board chairman — the college dean — came and spoke and mingled with the kids, and they had certificates for the kids. It was a nice celebration; they do know how to celebrate. (The program is) working. Kids are learning to read.”

Carpenter said he believes the organization’s efforts could be life-changing for the Liberian students.

“It’s a very messed-up country politically,” Carpenter said. “(They’ve had two) civil wars. Corruption is rampant. And the people are powerless because they don’t know what’s going on because they can’t read. I’m hoping that if even just those 100 kids share their knowledge with friends, as they grow older, perhaps it’ll grow.”

Carpenter recently launched a fundraiser on GoFundMe to raise money for the next educational cycle, which is slated to begin in October.

“They’ve got the community leader. They’ve got the space, but they don’t have the money to pay tutors $25 a month,” he said. “(They need) tutors and some basic materials — chalkboards, chalk, booklets, things like that. I’m trying to take myself out of it as much as I can financially, not because it’s a hardship for me, but because I want them to become self-sufficient. I’m pushing really hard on that right now.”

Carpenter and Vancouver resident Ruth Bosckis recently registered a nonprofit organization in Washington state to raise money for the program.

“So far, we’ve got $400 donated from Ruth’s friends into that account,” he said. “My belief is that there are many altruistic people in the world, people who think, ‘Yeah, this is important,’ without any return to (themselves). I think there are a lot of people like that. I’m hoping so, anyway.”

Carpenter said he is passionate about GIVP’s continued success.

“For so little to help so many … I just like kids to learn how to read,” he said. “It’s important to me.”

To donate to Carpenter’s GoFundMe benefitting GIVP, visit gofundme.com/f/help-liberian-kids-learn-donate-for-educa tion.