Kirkland resident Antoinette Brewster can vividly recall walking through her childhood neighborhood to see her parent’s home in Liberia, West Africa after two civil wars rocked the country in the early 1980’s and into the 2000’s.
The violence had left Mary Sieanyeneh and Samuel Joseph Mentee’s home completely destroyed. The home that was once a beautiful gated stone residence was missing its doors and roof. Homeless people and wanderers used mats to make shelter of what was left.
“It was very painful,” Brewster recalled. “It was worse than I ever imagined. When I went, people said (the situation) improved – I couldn’t see it.”
Brewster walked 45 minutes from her home into the streets of downtown Kakta, where she grew up, where buildings lay in ruins. A bunch of homeless kids approached her. She asked them if they had been to school and they said no. She asked them if they wanted to go to school and they all said “yes.”
Since then, Brewster has made it her mission to get those kids off the street.
She founded a self-funding, public IRC 501(c) (3) organization based in Kirkland, called the Mentee Educational Foundation, named after her parents, to build a school. Her parents were educators throughout their life (although Brewster’s parents had only three biological children, they helped provide education to 42 foster children).
The foundation is sponsoring a fund raising dinner on March 13 at Mount Baker Community Club in Seattle. The goal is to raise $60,000 by May, according to Kate Krueger, president of the foundation.
“I think the way (we will) go about building in Liberia is building not what you need, but what you have, so we will try to do most of it based on what we raise,” Krueger said.
Brewster’s classmate from Berea College in Kentucky, Nontombi Tutu, will be the fundraiser’s featured speaker. Tutu is a civil rights activist and daughter of Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu.
Brewster, the foundation’s executive director, and her siblings are donating their parent’s home in Kakata to provide the foundation on which to build the school that will house grades one through six. Construction for Change is partnering with Mentee to build the school and Friends of Liberia will begin training teachers in early childhood education.
In May, Brewster and the foundation board that includes four Kirkland residents will go to Liberia to train them.
“A lot of the teachers are using rote learning techniques, meaning they will have their backs to the students while they write on the chalkboard,” said Cassie Thomas, head of the foundation’s educational committee. “(They focus on) memorization of facts in the classroom instead of going farther to allow students to internalize and come to a full understanding of the subject matter … This has a terrible effect on students’ motivation and ability to learn.”
Unlike public schools in the United States, Liberia’s schools are not free. Brewster received a handwritten letter from a young man named Luke O. Sayo who begged her to get him into a school even though he was deemed too old by the country’s standards. Both of Sayo’s parents had died during the war and lacked finances. Brewster sponsored him and got him into a school in Monrovia.
“It’s going to require a lot of work,” Brewster said. “We came here and we say, ‘what sacrifice can we make for your country’? It’s not easy to leave your job and throw in the towel … is not always what society can do for you; it is what you can do for society.”
Brewster plans to resign from Expeditors International of Washington May 1. She said her job has “provided me with the tools I needed to make this big step in my life.”
Mentee Educational Foundation Benefit Dinner
The fund raiser will be held at the Mt. Baker Community Club, 2811 Mt. Rainier Drive South, Seattle. For tickets and information regarding Mentee Educational Foundation go to www.menteefoundation.org.
The Mentee Educational Foundation is located on 12621 NE 142nd St., Kirkland, and can be reached at 425-242-0890.
