Former Terp, Current Minnesota Vikings DB, Madieu Williams, On a Goodwill Mission

Madieu Williams continues to make us proud!!! He and a cohort from the School of Public Health are in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Madieu's hometown, and where Madieu has established a school in honor of his mother, Abigail Burscher. You can see Madieu, back row, second from the left, with the school administration and members of the travel party. Here is an excerpt from the journal of Dr. Woodie Kessel, pediatrician, (front row, second from the left) about the school visit.

It took 2.5 to 3 hours to get to Madieu’s school. Most of the travel was paved potholed roads except for the last half hour of rough unpaved rocky road. We drove by some very poor housing albeit with space between the homes unlike in most other parts of Freetown. Since everything here is so poor it is hard todistinguish from poor, real poor, and unbelievably poor. We arrived at Madieu’s school and we were as you might expect VERY warmly received, especially Madieu. We met the Head Master, school staff, and the teachers and peaked into each of three classrooms. In classroom 1 the lesson was a secular version of “In the Beginning” – on day 1 G-d created light…; in class room 2 the lesson was addition and subtraction; and in class room 3 it was multiplication. Class 2 and 3 welcomed us with songs and dancing. We then went to the Headmaster’s office for the Friendship agreement signing and instruction of bracelet crafting. Madieu and I spoke briefly and took many photos. We presented them ALL with hats from Bob and the UMD SoPH thanks to Gloria (and the SPH Alumni Association).