Samuka

Brooklyn Park man aims to build school in Liberia

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• published: 15 Apr 2013
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Liberia is still struggling to recover after more than 14 years of civil war. Eight of every ten Liberians still live in poverty and educational opportunities are hard to come by. But Samuka Kiazolu of Brooklyn Park is trying to change that. Samuka is in the process of building a school in the remote jungles of Liberia. Pointing to a picture of children in torn clothes, he said "this is the villages where there are nothing." Samuka fled the country in 1996. He escaped in a cramped refugee ship, and almost died in the Atlantic Ocean. "We lived five days without food, no water," he said Several years later, he finally made it to America, but he never forgot the small village where he grew up. He remembered the small, dilapidated school where he went to school. Samuka decided to build a new school in its place to be called the Buluma Elementary School. The nine-room classroom will have a library and a room where the girls can learn to sew. Samuka and his nonprofit, Community Aid Liberia, are building the school brick by brick. "We make our own bricks, one bag of cement gives us 32 bricks. So we'er praying for 30 thousand bricks to build a school." The Brooklyn Park resident said he wants the school to be a beacon of hope for a better future. "I want the next child to follow my footsteps, the next child in the jungle, to follow my footsteps." The group needs to raise about $165,000 to build the school. They are also collecting books for the school. If you want to donate, log onto www.communityaidliberia.com. Sonya Goins, reporting http://twelve.tv/ http://www.facebook.com/12localnews http://twitter.com/12LocalNews 12 News is on Comcast cable channel 12 in the northwest suburbs of Minneapolis and includes the cities Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, Crystal, Golden Valley, Maple Grove, New Hope, Osseo, Plymouth and Robbinsdale.