Betsy Small in Person

Join us on Wednesday, June 11 at 7 PM as Betsy Small presents her new book, Before Before: A Story of Discovery and Loss in Sierra Leone. She will be joined in conversation by Polly Byers.

Sierra Leone is often sensationalized as a place of extreme violence and suffering—of blood diamonds, child soldiers, war amputations, and Ebola and now the highly addictive drug Kush. Before Before captures daily life in a different country, one Betsy Small first encountered as a Peace Corps worker between 1984–1987, and then rediscovered when she returned decades later with her daughter. Living in Tokpombu, a remote community of forty rice-farming families, the author faced struggles that changed her forever and witnessed the growing tensions in this rainforest village—between the young and old, between the traditions of oral history and honoring the ancestors valued by the elders and the siren call of the illicit diamond mines faced by the youth.

Before Before offers a rare portrait of everyday people, with particular focus on the lives of women and girls, before the brutal war of 1991 tore the country apart. Through Small’s account of immersion in another world as she witnessed injustice and was welcomed as a friend, readers are invited to explore the shared ground of our humanity.

Betsy Small served in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone from 1984 to 1987. For over thirty years, she has worked with divided communities both in the US and abroad. This experience inspired her to write Before Before: A Story of Discovery and Loss in Sierra Leone.

Betsy holds master's degrees in cross-cultural counseling psychology and special education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and North Carolina Central University. Throughout her career she has taught and provdied couneling to families and youth in schools and universities and various non profit organizations. In addition, she has served as Executive Director for global peace-building organizations, and most recently, she has collaborated with teams of peace-builders in Israel, Palestine and Cyprus and Northern Ireland.

Polly Byers recently stepped down as the Executive Director of Karuna Center for Peacebuilding, based in Amherst Mass, and has more than 30 years of experience working both
within and outside of government channels to support peacebuilding practices and to increase local collaboration and ownership of aid and peace processes.
In a career working for the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Department of State, the Congressional Select Committee on Hunger, and a range of international and non-
governmental organization, she has focused on collaborative approaches to increase local engagement and ownership of aid and peacebuilding efforts. Ms. Byers holds an MA from Yale
University in International Relations, a BA from Wesleyan University, and served as a PeaceCorps Volunteer in Morocco.

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