Public Lecture: Helping to Open a School in Sierra Leone

Columbia, S.C. – International Coordinator Juanita Mendenhall will speak about how Disaster Assistance Partnerships (DAP) helped to open the first school in Madina, Sierra Leone one year ago. This free public event will be held at 7 p.m. on Monday, April 13, 2015 at the University of South Carolina Russell House Theater. For the children in the village of Madina, it was their first time attending school.

Mendenhall will discuss challenges the school has faced, DAP’s ongoing efforts to establish a home economics program for the women of Madina, and DAP’s other worldwide outreach projects. DAP is currently working in the Philippines to reconstruct schools that were affected by the 2013-2014 tsunamis.

DAP is a network that includes the International Federation for Home Economics (IFHE), American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences/Global Perspectives, Caribbean Association of Home Economists, IFHE-US, Thailand, Australia and Japan Associations and the International Home Economics Services, plus multiple, state, university and other organizations and individuals worldwide. Information about DAP is available at http://ifhe.org/  or https://homeeconomicspartnership.wordpress.com/?ref=spelling

A resident of South Carolina, Mendenhall currently serves on numerous boards to include the SC American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences, the SC Department of Education Family and Consumer Sciences Advisory Committee, and AAUW SC. She is the retired Executive Director of Kershaw County Teen Health Promotion Coalition, past Region of the Americas Vice-President of IFHE, and past president of IFHE-US.  She received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences in 2010.

This free public event is sponsored by the University of South Carolina Golden Key International Honour Society, a non-profit 501 (c)3 organization.