About Us

Our Mission

Excellent education lays the foundation for Liberia’s long-term self-sufficiency and success in the global economy. We use our resources and expertise as U.S. scientists, doctors, and engineers to improve science education in Liberia by working directly with Liberian educators and students. We aim to train, equip, and inspire them to love learning.

To that end, we have organized many teaching workshops in Monrovia, Ganta and other major cities in Liberia. We have coordinated large donation drives of shoes, books and scientific equipment, and we have organized math and science competitions. Read more about our work.

Our Inspiration

Some call him Coach, some call him Mr. Randolph, and some call him Brother Asumana. We all call him our inspiration.

Asumana Jabateh Randolph is a Liberian who teaches science at Hunter College High School in New York City. Through his decades at Hunter, he has worked with countless students in his teaching lab in room 409. Not only does he excite high schoolers about science, he also reaches out to them in a way few teachers can. He finds out about their lives, teases them about their boyfriends or girlfriends (real or imagined), and asks to see their report cards. Because of the way in which is truly cares about his students, many of them stay in touch with him throughout their lives. Some of them carry on his love of sharing his knowledge, as well as his deep concern for other people, by contributing to the I-HELP Liberia Project.

Asumana was born in the Liberian village of Kpain. He attended the nation’s leading vocational high school, the Booker Washington Institute, before coming to the United States at age 16 to escape the tumult of Liberia’s civil wars. When he later joined the Hunter College High School staff, he always kept Liberia in his heart. Over the last 20 years, Asumana and the many Hunter students he has led have worked to improve educational opportunities in Liberia.

Our History

The I-HELP Liberia Project has been a student organization at Hunter College High School since 1994. In 2008, a group of students and alumni formalized the effort and incorporated the I-HELP Liberia Project as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

I-HELP teams have visited Liberia on fourteen occasions as of 2016. During our trips, we have lead teacher training workshops, organized science competitions, and distributed donations of laboratory equipment. In all these endeavors, we have collaborated with Liberian partners to bring sustainable solutions to the country’s most urgent educational needs.