students served
teachers trained
total community members engaged
Luminos in Liberia
Since 2016, Luminos has worked with community-based organizations and the government of Liberia to scale our catch-up education program, reaching more than 17,660 out-of-school children.
Meet Jessica, a Luminos student in Liberia:
Liberia at a Glance
Even before COVID-19, Liberia’s education sector was badly damaged by legacies of Ebola and civil war. While the government has taken many important steps to improve the quality of teaching and learning, there are more than 336,000 children missing out on an education.
Poverty in Liberia remains a considerable barrier to learning, with more than half of the population, 50.9 percent, living below the national poverty line.

What We Do in Liberia
Through our partnerships with community-based organizations, Luminos is weaving together our global best practices with local insights and experience. This ensures both high impact and high ownership of our work.
We have a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Ministry of Education, representing our joint commitment to ensuring all children can catch up to grade level, reintegrate into government schools, and prepare for lifelong learning.
Our classes of 30 students run five days a week for 10 months, covering the first three grades of school. We work with local publishers to incorporate Liberian stories into the curriculum, and we provide a much-needed school lunch for each student.
Previous external results show that Luminos students progress from not knowing the alphabet to reading short stories within just 10 months.
“The rate at which Luminos students are performing is exceptional… I want to applaud Luminos Fund for the tremendous work being done in improving results in education in Liberia.”
Minister Tarnue Marwolo Bongolee
Assistant Minister for Student Personnel Services, Liberia

The 2022-2023 School Year
classrooms
students
counties
community partners
Recent Reports & Evaluations
In the 2021-22 school year, Luminos students went from being able to an average of just 1 word in one minute to 29!
Meet our Liberia Team

Donnalee Donaldson

Abba G. Karnga Jr.

James Earl Kiawoin

Mohammed B. Kiawu

Emmanuel Massaley

G. Alphanso Menyon

Alex Debrown Seh

Folley J. Toe

Corina Wornee
“My favorite part of my role is visiting classes. You get to see the progress of students over time. If you visited a class five weeks ago and you come back, you see visible improvement in students’ reading ability. Everyone is just so happy! The teachers have this laser-focus approach to improving student learning outcomes.”
James Earl Kiawoin, Liberia Country Manager
Our Community Partners
Frontline community-based organizations (CBOs) are fundamental to Luminos’ model. These CBOs help select the communities we work in based on local needs, lead community engagement and delivery of the Luminos program, and monitor the program on an ongoing basis. In Liberia, Luminos works with the Ministry of Education and the following CBOs to co-create and deliver our country-specific programs:
“Working with Luminos defines the true essence of collaboration and partnership. Our context-driven knowledge of the issues is always valued by the Luminos team. The openness and strong commitment to integrating feedback makes this partnership so worthwhile.
The impact of the Luminos project cannot be quantified. It is beyond the number of students that transitioned to public schools. For us at LIPACE, the real impact is in the families and community of people that appreciates the value of education as a key to improving their livelihoods. There’s nothing more transformative than watching a child holding a pencil for the first time at age 12 only to complete primary school four years later. It’s been an inspiring journey.”
Benjamin M. Freeman Jr.
Executive Director, Liberia Institute for the Promotion of Academic Excellence (LIPACE)
“Working with Luminos defines the true essence of collaboration and partnership. Our context-driven knowledge of the issues is always valued by the Luminos team. The openness and strong commitment to integrating feedback makes this partnership so worthwhile.
The impact of the Luminos project cannot be quantified. It is beyond the number of students that transitioned to public schools. For us at LIPACE, the real impact is in the families and community of people that appreciates the value of education as a key to improving their livelihoods. There’s nothing more transformative than watching a child holding a pencil for the first time at age 12 only to complete primary school four years later. It’s been an inspiring journey.”
Benjamin M. Freeman Jr.
Executive Director, Liberia Institute for the Promotion of Academic Excellence (LIPACE)
Latest news & stories from Liberia
Cracking the Code: Phonics 101
In Luminos classrooms, we use a systematic and explicit phonics-based approach to teach children to read. But what is phonics and why do we use it? Phonics is a step-by-step way of teaching children to decode and recognize new words rather than just memorizing words...
Luminos Liberia Students Make Substantial Literacy Gains in 2021-22
Read the full report summary ↑In 2016, the Luminos Fund launched its accelerated, catch-up learning program in Liberia to help address the country’s urgent education needs – including one of the world’s highest recorded rates of out-of-school children. To date,...
What the Average Hides
At the Luminos Fund, our work is driven by a commitment to help children learn an incredible amount in a short time: three years of school in just 10 months. As the Country Manager for our Liberia program, my team and I set ambitious targets to ensure all our students build foundational learning skills — and we measure their progress along the way, in real-time, often using data averages to gain quick insights.
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The Luminos Fund is a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt charitable organization registered in the United States (EIN 36-4817073).