IDP Mourns Loss of Liberia TESTS Chief of Party
Written by Hayley Niad, Ricardia Badio-Dennis, and Nick Hoekstra
It is with great sorrow that we mark the recent passing of Liana Gertsch, beloved Chief of Party of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Transforming the Education System for Teachers and Students in Liberia (TESTS) Activity in Liberia. Liana’s death was unexpected, and cut short a life of profound contribution to the international education community and to humanity at large.
Liana joined our project one year ago, after storied contributions to education activities around the world, including in Bangladesh, Malawi, and Kyrgyzstan. Her smile was warm and her humility and care for others transformative. She could hop between conversations in Hindi, Dutch, or English while enjoying a coffee with a dab of milk or on her way to a water aerobics class. She never met a stranger, because it was not at all difficult to become her friend.
Liana was a pioneer in the vision of education for ALL, never shying away from our team’s mission of promoting inclusive education for women and persons with disabilities. Her relentless commitment to equity in education entailed lots of hard work, the ability to manage difficult conversations, to think creatively about solving challenging problems, and a self-assuredness that fighting for what is right is worth the effort. She leaves behind a legacy that we will endeavor to fulfill in some small way, although the quiet, unassuming yet powerful influence she held can never be duplicated.
We also hope that Liana’s untimely ending teaches us to lean on one another, to ask for help when we need it, and to care for ourselves as much as we care for others. Unlike the keyboard on which this post is written, there are no backspace or delete keys in the time we have together. For the mission of inclusive education to continue, we must look to each other and trek onwards.
One picture shows Liana (right) with colleague Hayley at the border to Guinea. The other picture shows Liana with two colleagues at the Liberian Cooperative Standard Education School System (LICOSESS) at an awards ceremony.
Learn more about the TESTS project in Liberia (scroll down past the text on a separate Liberia activity, ESSA): https://lnkd.in/gR9Cvjex
#Liberia #InclusiveEducation #memorial
RTI International