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Executive Director:
Cindy Nofziger, Seattle, WA
Board of Officers:
President - Bob Heavner, Ph.D., Berkeley, CA
1st Vice Pres. - Alusine Kamara,
Boston, MA
2nd Vice Pres. - Amadu Massally, Garland, TX
Sec/Treasurer - Peggy Garber, Seattle, WA
Board Members:
Michael Gibbons, Ph.D., Washington, DC
Catherine Frazier, Ph.D. &
Richard Frazier, Ph.D.,
Warrensburg, MO
Barbara Herz, Ph.D., Jackson Hole, WY
Rembert Pieper, Ph.D., Washington, DC
Rudy Cline-Thomas, Philadelphia, PA
Advisory Board Members:
Ishmael Beah, author, New York, NY
Joseph Opala, anthropologist, authority: Sierra Leone culture and history, Harrisonburg, VA
Patsy Spier, Victim Outreach Specialist, Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism at the US Department of Justice and Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone, Centennial, CO and Washington DC
Alieu Iscandari, Attorney, Oakland, CA
Phil O'Rourke, Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone, Bethesda, MD
Web Master: Peggy@Garbers.com
Ishmael Beah is a surviving child soldier from Sierra Leone. He recently authored the book "A Long Way Gone" about the war, and currently serves as the UNICEF Ambassador for Children affected by Armed Conflict.
Ishmael says that "one of the significant things that happened in my life after coming out of the war in my country, Sierra Leone, was being able to go to school again. Through schooling, I was able to begin reconnecting with my past before the war; a past that was filled with wonderful memories of songs recited in classrooms and reading texts aloud. Education has allowed me to rediscover some of my childhood happiness and to gather strength to continue living, as I can now hope for a future. This is why I truly support the work of Schools For Salone. There is no better way to empower the younger generation and their communities than providing them with education."
in 2008, Ishmael Beah sponsord a Schools for Salone project at Junctionla, in southern Sierra Leone near his home village of Mogbwemo.
Cindy Nofziger served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone from 1985 -1987 working as a physical therapist at Masanga Leprosy Hospital. Cindy began Schools for Salone after returning to Sierra Leone in 2004, where she was asked by former friends and colleagues at Masanga Hospital to help fill a desperate need in the country. She has 25 years of experience in health care, education, and project development. She holds graduate degrees in Physical Therapy from Boston University and Health Administration from the University of Washington, Seattle. Cindy also serves on the board of Friends of Sierra Leone (http://www.fosalone.org/).
Bob Heavner Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist from Berkeley CA. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone from 1969-71 where he taught secondary school. Bob led non-profits in the San Francisco Bay area for many years. As a psychologist he specializes in work with trauma survivors and victims of torture. Bob has initiated four separate school refurbishing projects at his former PeaceCorps school, Scarcies Secondary School in Mambolo, and provides mental health consultation in Sierra Leone where he returns annually.
Alusine Kamara has worked extensively in Sierra Leone in the fields of nursing and public health for over twenty five years. He has served as a government official and liaison between officials and humanitarian organizations including: the Swedish Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, National Commission for Disarmament and Reintegration of Adult combatants. He has served as Secretary General of Sierra Leone Addiction Council, worked training teachers on both public and mental health issues with CREPS (Complimentary Rapid Education Program for Schools), sponsored by UNICEF and The World Health Organization. Mr. Kamara was also Staff Nurse-in-charge at Hill Station Hospital in Freetown as well as the Director and Head Nurse of Benin Home, a rehabilitation center focusing on the reintegration of former child soldiers into civilian life following the ten year war in Sierra Leone, where he became friends with Ishmael Beah.
Currently Mr. Kamara works on the Neurology floor of Massachusetts General Hospital. He lives in Boston with his family, including his wife Bamba, and their four children.
Amadu Massally is a Sierra Leonean who resides in Dallas, TX. He is President of the non-profit Sierra Leone Network (http://www.SierraLeoneNetwork.org/) and co-founder of the Sierra Leone-Gullah Heritage Association, an organization that seeks to lead Sierra Leoneans to re-connect with their Sierra Leonean-American brothers and sisters, and vice versa, who are descendants of slaves brought primarily from Bunce Island, but also other areas of the country. (http://www.bunce-island.org/) Amadu is also very involved with the Sierra Leonean Diaspora through the Council of Representatives (CORE), which seeks to serve as an umbrella representation for the Diaspora. He recently received the Diamond Award for Distinguished and Outstanding Service from the National Organization of Sierra Leoneans in North America (NOSLINA), to be conferred at their 11th Anniversary Fundraising Dinner/Dance and Awards Gala on Saturday, April 25th 2009.
Upon graduating from the University of Washington in Seattle, Peggy Garber and her husband Steve served in Sahn Malen of Pujehun District in Sierra Leone as Peace Corps Community Development Volunteers in 1967 and 1968. After the Peace Corps and helping Steve with several entrepreneurial endeavors, Peggy taught in adult education and at community colleges while helping raise their family. In 1981, she began teaching herself about computers, starting with the first IBM, 2 floppy disk, Personal Computer. Over the years she has done basic programming and network administration, graphics, video and sound editing, educational programs, DVD production and web design. Digital photography has become her passion. In 1995, she started her own company and continues to learn more every year. She is sharing her knowledge and skills with Schools for Salone as our Web Master and was recently elected to use her documentary skills as Secretary/Treasure.
Michael Gibbons served from 1976-79 as a Peace Corps agriculture extension worker and trainer in Sierra Leone, specializing in rice production (2 yrs in Kukuna Kambia District, 1 yr w/ the Ministry of Agriculture). He's worked in basic education, community development and social justice in Asia, Africa, Latin America and low-income areas of the USA with CARE International, Save the Children, Banyan Tree Foundation and as an indepdendent consultant. Michael now
teaches courses in the International Training and Education Program (ITEP) at the American University, coordinating the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict at the Council on Foreign Relations. He initiated "Leadership & Learning", a program supporting inter-agency learning in basic education. Current projects include forming a funders' group for international education with Hewlett Foundation, program development in education with UNICEF, strategic planning with the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies, supporting International Rescue Committee post-conflict education in West Africa, promoting International Center for Child Labor and Education efforts on inclusion of marginalized children in education, and supporting selected local NGOs in Africa and Asia working on education. Michael has been back to SL working with NGOs and the Ministry of Education on school development and education since 2000.
Richard and Catherine Frazier served as Peace Corps Volunteer teachers and teacher educators in Njala Komboya, Sierra Leone from 1976-78. They have also taught in Saudi Arabia at the Dhahran Academy and in Singapore at the Singapore American School. Catherine is an English Language Learning specialist, with a PhD from the University of Missouri at Kansas City in Multicultural Education and Sociology / Anthropology. She currently teaches English language learners in the Warrensburg, MO public schools. Richard has a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction / Science Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is an associate professor of science education in the Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg.
Together with an Operation Classroom team, Richard and Catherine have facilitated workshops for teachers in Makeni, Sierra Leone annually from 2005-2008. Catherine has also worked with teachers in Cambodia, Peru, and Korea. She has been active in the development of state standards for ELL in Missouri and has presented regularly at state and national conferences. She is a co-author of Reachout Stepout, an English Language series for primary students published in Singapore. Catherine and Richard are currently working on a new English language series for Cengage Publishers in Singapore. Richard has conducted workshops for teachers in Cambodia, Guatemala, Mexico, and the Navajo Nation. He has recently been co-director for a multi-year, grant funded, professional development project for science teachers in Missouri, and like Catherine, makes regular presentations at state and national conferences. Richard is on the projects committee for the Friends of Sierra Leone.
Barbara Herz has worked on girls' education for more than twenty years. In the 1970s she headed the U.S. Agency for International Development Division responsible for policy in education, health, and population. She was a member of the U.S. delegation to the UN Conference for Women in Copenhagen in 1980. She then worked in 1981-1999 at the World Bank, where she launched the Women in Development division and then headed another division covering education, health, and population in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. She was a member of the World Bank Delegation to the UN Conference for Women in Nairobi in 1986. She later served as senior adviser for social sectors to Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and is now an economic consultant living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She holds a BA from Wellesley and a PhD from Yale and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Rembert Pieper is an Associate Professor at a non-profit genome research institute, the J. Craig Venter Institute, in Rockville, Maryland, and lives in Washington D.C. His main research areas are the molecular analysis of microbial pathogens and the development of proteomic technologies. Neglected infectious diseases such as bacillary dysentery and tuberculosis are among his particular interests. Rembert is involved in science education programs at the JCVI and George Washington University and is also exploring opportunities to foster scientific exchange with African universities and research institutions. Rembert has visited development projects in health and education in several Asian and African countries over the last 10 years, most recently in Sierra Leone in 2008, when the new schools of Masanga and Buma funded by Schools for Salone were opened.
Rudolph Cline-Thomas is a Washington DC native of Sierra Leone decent and has enjoyed a successful career within the sports management industry. After a successful basketball career at Good Counsel High School in Silver Spring, MD, he went on to attend Providence College in Rhode Island , where he received a Bachelor's of Science Degree in Finance and Management as a Martin Luther King Scholar.
In 1998, Rudy joined the Consumer Products Group of the NBA, managing the accounts of Licensees, creating value for athletes, while advising the league on new trends. It was there that Rudy built key relationships with top league officials, sponsors and licensees, while learning league and team operations.
After the NBA, Rudy worked for the athlete representation arm of the renowned law firm of Williams & Connolly. He built strategic branding and long term career planning that helped guide the careers of Tim Duncan, Grant Hill, Chamique Holdsclaw, Andre Miller, Ray Allen, and others. Rudy's understanding and knowledge of each athlete, specific trends, career and financial goals have helped his clients’ succeed.
In 2006, Rudy started the business management firm, The BluePRINT, to address the common financial pitfalls that even the savviest athletes make during their careers. The BluePRINT assists athletes in balancing the demands and responsibilities of playing at an elite level, while managing personal and business affairs in the complex world of today’s professional athletics. Rudy resides in Philadelphia, P.A.
Joseph Opala served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone from 1974 to 1978. He was a rice agriculture agent in Bumbuna in Tonkolili District in the Northern Province from 1974 to 1976. Later, he was Staff Archaeologist at the Sierra Leone National Museum in Freetown. After the Peace Corps, he taught African Studies at the University of Sierra Leone from 1985 to 1991, and was an advisor to Sierra Leone's president on cultural policy.
When Sierra Leone fell into anarchy in the 1990s, Mr. Opala joined with two Sierra Leonean human rights activists -- Zainab Bangura and Julius Spencer -- to found the Campaign for Good Governance, now Sierra Leone's foremost pro-democracy and human rights NGO. After Mr. Opala was forced to flee Sierra Leone in 1997 during the AFRC military coup, he returned to the U.S. where he was actively trying to explain the country's plight to the outside world. He delivered briefings at the US State Department and in Congress, gave interviews to the media, and wrote op-eds for major national and international journals.
In recent years, he has acted as an advisor to the US National Park Service on African American history and as Scholar-in-Residence at Penn Center, St. Helena Island, South Carolina. In 2004 he was a research fellow at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. In 2005 he was a fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. He teaches at James Madison University in Virginia.
He is known for his research on the "Gullah Connection," the long historical thread that links Africans in Sierra Leone and other countries on the "Rice Coast" of West Africa with the Gullah people of coastal South Carolina and Georgia. Events resulting from that research were chronicled in "Family Across the Sea," an award-winning PBS documentary broadcast throughout the US in 1991. In “The Language You Cry In,” a documentary released in 1998, his research traced an ancient African song preserved by a Gullah family in coastal Georgia to a village in Sierra Leone where the same song is still sung today.
More recently, Mr. Opala found documents in the New-York Historical Society that helped link a Gullah woman living in Charleston, South Carolina with her great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, an enslaved African child taken from Sierra Leone in 1756, and resulted in "Priscilla's Homecoming" to Sierra Leone in 2005.
Mr. Opala has presented lectures at universities, museums, and other educational institutions throughout the country. His research has been covered by the New York Times, Washington Post, and Associated Press. He has appeared on CBS "60 Minutes" and CNN, and on NPR's "The World, "Fresh Air," and "All Things Considered," programs. In 1991, his research was featured on Channel 7 TV in Washington, DC in a week-long series called the "African American Connection."
More about Joseph Opala on Wikipedia
and about his research on the Bunce Island Slave Castle.
Patsy (Swann) Spier served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone from 1979-1981, working as a Primary Math Workshop Instructor. Patsy has a Master of Arts in Education from Adams State College in Alamosa, CO, and a Master of Arts in Global Studies with an emphasis in Global Health from the University of Denver. She has 20 years of experience as an educator; 12 of those years working in International schools overseas.
On September 29, 2008, she became the Victim Outreach Specialist in the Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism at the Department of Justice. As such she assists in identifying victims of international terrorism and developing plans for outreach to those victims.
Alieu Iscandari, is a sierra Leonean born lawyer in the San Francisco Bay area. He is married to his high school sweetheart Kipi and they have three children. He has been the principal attorney in the Law offices of Iscandari and Associates and practices in the areas of Personal Injury, Immigration, and general criminal/civil Litigation. In 2004 Mr. Iscandari closed down a thriving practice located in Castro Valley California, to work with the Special Court for Sierra Leone as a Lawyer in the office of the Prosecutor, where he served for one year. He has returned to the Bay area where he lives and practices Law. His interest is in the area of deconstructing and reconstructing the Justice system in Sierra Leone, improving the efficacy of the anti corruption commission and creating a justice system based on fairness and easy access to all. His goal is to set up an indigent criminal defense firm in Sierra Leone. His hobbies are chess, golf and canoeing.
Phil O'Rourke lived in Africa for 10 years after serving as a Peace Corps Vounteer in Sierra Leone from '67-'69. He worked for NGOs in Sierra Leone, Ghana and Burundi and then managed a cassiterite exporting company in the Congo. Later, he moved to London with his family and worked with Lazard Brothers doing sovereign debt restructuring, debt equity swaps, and brokered sovereign and trade debt sales with African countries. After returning to Bethesda in 1993, he has continued the same work, but mostly in Bulgaria and Moscow. He is currently semi-retired.
In April 2008, the Schools for Salone Board met in Seattle to dicuss progress and plan for the future of the organization.
