Tim Visits Delphi Academy of Florida

-16 days to departure

Over the last many weeks there has been numerous text, email and phone conversations about the details of this trip. As you can imagine, there is a multitude of details to be worked out. Surprisingly, just two weeks from departure, today was the first day I met face to face with the driving force behind this project, the one leading the way, Tim Bowles.

With that, I will get to the "Who are we?" question and introduce you to the three members of this undertaking. I'll start with Tim. 

In 2006, Tim was in West Africa doing volunteer work with a group called Youth for Human Rights International which promotes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They were building support for the acceptance and promulgation of human rights with the region's youth. As word of the program's success spread, young leaders from neighboring countries found their way to Ghana, where the project was headquartered, to be part of the movement. 

One of Tim's jobs was driving to the airport to pick up young leaders flying in from afar. And it was on one of these simple airport runs that Tim met a young man from Liberia named Jay who asked Tim a simple question: "Will you help me?" 

Tim's life would never be the same, nor would Liberia. 

Jay had just lived through fourteen years of very bloody, Liberian civil wars which had ended just three short years earlier, leaving the nation debilitated and scarred. His country of three million people had lost nearly a quarter million to the insanity of war. 

Tim's answer to Jay's simple, heartfelt plea was teaming up with Jay and spearheading a nationwide human rights campaign that brought much-needed calm, sanity and relief to the beleaguered people of Liberia. And to this day, the heartbeat of human rights and the freedom it brings still beats strongly in Liberia.

But human rights will not last where there is illiteracy. Thus, there is article #26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Right to Education (video) and the reason for our upcoming journey.

This brings us back to today and my first handshake with Tim. As fate would have it, Tim, who lives in Southern California, flew into town for the weekend. So I invited him to speak to the students in our high school about his work in Africa and our upcoming trip. The students were captivated by his very personal and powerful story and one for one left the presentation wanting to help the project succeed in every way.