I was born in Deiwen, Montserrado County, Republic of Liberia
In my family, I have my father Mr. Hitler Peter Wragboe, my mother Marpule W. Wragboe who just died August 2, 2017, two brothers that include Prince G. Wragboe, Hitler P. Wragboe, Jr. and three sisters that include Blessing Wragboe, Matee Wragboe and Kokou Wragboe.
I have my wife who has been sick for the past six months named Cecelia D.R. Wragboe with my only son Emmanuel Z. Wragboe, Jr. and daughters, Tebeh Wragboe, Emanlyn Wragboe, Doedey Cecelia Wragboe, Wudu Wragboe and my only Granddaughter Emanly Kai.
I lived in my house with three of my children (a boy and two girls), my wife, a sister, grandmother, granddaughter, also with a girl child I am helping and two boys that are stopping with me.
The war was a serious disaster to my family; it brought a set back to my personal life. It got me into early marriage, drinking and smoking. It killed one of my mother sons who were so dear to her and traumatised her, owing to God intervention, she was able to come through.
I was 13 years old when the war started in 1990. The war separated my parents owing to my father position as commissioner at the time. The war was so, that whenever the rebel heard that you work for government, they will kill you and your entire family. My brothers and I started our own journey joining the rebel group to survive. For me, I returned after the training and was taken to the battle field where many of us died, I got to escape for my life. Since then, I turn to surveillance while in the bush hiding. I was in the 4th grade when the war came and born my first daughter at the age of 17 years. The war got me to be man by force. I used to go over the sea to fishing for survival. After the war, I started school as a father of a daughter in the fourth grade class. My friends used to laugh at me because of my age and used to speak my dialect frequently instead of English.
One thing that came to mine was, I could only survive life if I learn, so no amount of laughing at me will discourage me from learning. The only thing that kept me encouraged was, I was so clever among my friends so I was always made class president. I served as class president from ABC TO 12 GRADE. I even served as student council government president for both 9th and 12th grades in school. My parents both survived the war but there was no job to keep us in school. To sustain my baby, the mother and I, I used to go fishing every week end to sell the fish to go to school, feed the home and take care of our health. I later got tired and left the fishing work, but because I have to survive with my family, I started teaching after I got my promotion to 10th grade and switch to night school to continue the school. I did this until I graduated from High in 2000.
After graduation, I remained teaching because there was no money for me to go to the university and so I was teaching to feed my family. I later thought I needed to still make some sacrifices to live better life. I went to a vocational school where I obtained a diploma in both accounting and management. I went to the teacher school and got “C” Certificate.
Today, I fought my way through and got an “AA” in education because I knew one of those days, my dream could come through that I wanted to build a school for our Liberian children. Again, I am seeking more support to go get my bachelors and masters degree. I pray that you could be a help, you that are reading this.
Education is important to me because is the light of every man; it make you to take informed decisions; make you to advocate for the betterment of your country and feel your family in dignity and proud. Education is important for Liberia because without education, our country will go backward and the development of our country will seem like a waste to many. If we have had the level of education we have now, we couldn’t have gone to war; it makes it very important.
I met Simon Crowe at a Youth Action International workshop in 2014. I was at Youth Action because I always wanted the good for my Liberian children, I got in contact with Dr. Kimmie L. Weeks asking him to extend his humanitarian work in my county. He agreed and we started training young men and women in computer, tailoring, cosmetology, etc. I was serving as the County Liaison Officer for the Youth Action International (YAI), in which I organized the training session that Simon came to and helped educate our young people.
I want to become an Education Administrator. It is very essential to me because as a trained administrator, you will build a good and vibrant school system. I have discovered from my research that our education system is weak because of lack of trained and schooled administrators. Most private and government schools used content teachers to serve as principals and supervisor and with this; it can’t help our system because everybody should work in their trained areas. It beholds me to go in this field because I have had 20 years experience being a Principal, Vice Principal for Administration, Vice Principal for Academic Affairs, Vice Principal for Student Affairs, Registrar, Program Director and so on. I have worked in all of the areas above. I would be happy if I could get a scholarship to forward my education from a degree to a master.
