Easy Fundraising

http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/educaidsierraleone

If you follow this link, you can raise money for free by doing your online shopping through this link.  Please do, it is very quick and easy to do and EducAid benefits from every online penny you spend.

Thank you.

If you are interested in knowing more about EducAid's work with vulnerable young Sierra Leoneans, please go to www.educaid.org.uk and www.sierraleonegirls.blogspot.com

Drs Rebecca Horn and Sean Higgins complete the first round of research skills training

Big smiles for the end of the first course.

The new Rolal Teacher Training and Resource centre is in action.  There are a couple of things to finish off in terms of plastering and fixing doors and windows but the centre is usable as is.  It is a wonderful airy space which will be used by many teachers over the months and years to come. 

It was great to see the new space in use by the Research Skills trainees.  A mixture of staff and students were trained by Rebecca and Sean in some very active research skills for two excitable weeks.  There are two more weeks of putting the new knowledge into practice to produce some research reports about some key educational issues relevant to the Port Loko area and indeed to EducAid's work.  

Rebecca is now writing up the handbook that will make it possible for the staff to pass on the training to other groups for which there is much enthusiasm!

If you are interested in knowing more about EducAid's work with vulnerable young Sierra Leoneans, please go to www.educaid.org.uk and www.sierraleonegirls.blogspot.com

Surprising she only lost her voice!

With Jane's enthusiastic leaping about and charging round the village, with the Sparrows class, we are quite surprised she has only lost her voice!

Jane Harris, criminology lecturer from the UK, has been in Maronka for three weeks and is settling in well.  She left her academic work so that she could 'get her hands dirty' and she is as good as her word.  Nervous that she would not have the requisite skills when she joined forces with ABJ, the sparrows class teacher, to teach the little ones their letters and sound, she has quickly found her feet and realises that she has lots and lots to offer.

Not only has Jane been teaching phonics but has realised that she can do very important work even training them in following instructions and simple following of routines.

A big thank you for all her hard work.  It is greatly appreciated.

If you are interested in knowing more about EducAid's work with vulnerable young Sierra Leoneans, please go to www.educaid.org.uk and www.educaidsierraleone.blogspot.com

Registration of all schools! Yes Yes Yes!

Mabinty, in class 4, will be able to sit the exams under
EducAid Maronka when she gets to the top of the school.

In the early days, I had to try and register some of the schools.  I went to the Ministry of Education zillions of times.  I filled in the forms to have them 'lost' three times.  It was made clear that if I had no little (or big) envelopes for those concerned with doing the stamping and signing, I could forget it.  In fact, I was even threatened with being fined for running illegal schools!  After five years of being treated like a complete idiot because I would not bribe, I eventually had break through when the government changed and the new minister wanted to be seen to be doing good things. I nearly cried when I was handed the exam centre numbers - the evidence of our new legal status.

Recently, we have had to get some further EducAid sites registered.  My heart sank at the likely game playing and time wasting I was to face.  I did waste 1 year hoping that the then Deputy Director of Education for Port Loko was doing what he promised but..........
However, I was given the opportunity, in September, to meet the First Lady of Sierra Leone, Mrs Sia Koroma, when she was travelling through Lungi when I was there meeting somebody and she told me to come back and meet her in her office so she could help me.  She has!  Her little note to the Minister has opened the doors of the ministry and within 1 month of completing our application forms for the registration Rolal Senior Secondary School, Rogbere Junior Secondary School and Maronka Primary School are all registered and have their official legal exam centre status.  The kids will be able to take public exams under their own centres and not be removed to another part of the country.

What an enormous relief!

If you are interested in knowing more about EducAid's work with vulnerable young people, please go to www.educaid.org.uk and www.sierraleonegirls.blogspot.com

Easy fundraising

This is for all you online shoppers...... If you register online by clicking on the link below, the Easy Fundraising website will send us a cheque periodically with money that gets generated on the side of all your online purchases.

Please do.  I just did and it takes only moments.  As most of you are aware, things are difficult all across the non-profit sector at the moment.  This is not different for EducAid and recently we have had to cut into some of our core activities in order to keep our heads above water. e.g. We are looking at shortening the school day as of January as we are no longer able to feed the day students. ..... so every bit helps!

If you ever do any online shopping, or even if you think you don't (because you might in the process find it is cheap and easy to do so) please do sign up.  We will be most appreciative and you will definitely be making a difference to our work in Sierra Leone.

http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/educaidsierraleone

If you are interested in knowing more about EducAid's work with vulnerable young Sierra Leoneans, please go to www.educaid.org.uk and www.sierraleonegirls.blogspot.com

Financial crisis

The Global Financial Crisis is kicking in.  Reduced giving means that at the meeting with the EducAid trustees this week, we have been told that all discretionary spending must stop and with immediate effect on my return to Sierra Leone, we must do a staff review and reduce staff and we will have to stop feeding the day students.

This is a very very hard message.  After 11 years of building things up, and at a time when staff and students are doing such a fantastic job, it is very difficult to hear that we must cut back.  If we don't feed the day students, particularly in the provinces, many will drop out.  They will not be able to afford to go to school if they are not fed as they will have to find food elsewhere.  If things are tough in the western world with the financial crisis, they are a lot harder already in Sierra Leone.

If you are a regular donor already and are in a position to increase your donation please consider doing so; if you are not a donor but would like to be one, please go to the donate page of the EducAid website and sign up.  If you know of anyone looking to make a donation where they are sure that their money will make a difference, please put us in touch.  If you know of schools or churches, organisations or clubs that might be prepared to fundraise for EducAid please do introduce us.  If you are in a position to undertake a fundraising event for EducAid, please let us know if there is any information we could supply in order to support you in this.

If you are interested in knowing more about EducAid's work with vulnerable young Sierra Leoneans, please go to www.educaid.org.uk and www.sierraleonegirls.blogspot.com

One off opportunity - Thank you so much to the Steve Sinnott Foundation

.....ready for lift off!

Something EducAid would never have afforded in a million years!  A trip to the UK for 12 staff was paid for by the Steve Sinnott Foundation.  The staff have spent a week in the Premier Inn at Euston and after a couple of days of sight seeing, got stuck into an intensive course in teacher training.

The idea being that those on the receiving end of this will take back their new found knowledge and use it not only in training EducAid staff but in training teachers from schools around us so we can have a maximum impact on teaching and learning in the area.

We are coming to the end of the most wonderful trip and we are very very appreciative of all those who have made it possible: The Broadhursts for everything from warm coats to stew to lifts to and from the tube to goodbye Christmas dinner for the hoards; all the schools that have welcomed the team so warmly and shared ideas and resources; my long suffering parents for hosting the whole team in Aston-le-Walls; the Steve Sinnott Foundation for paying for everything and exciting the staff with the 1st week of training; numerous friends from Muswell Hill and around for meals and treats and warm clothes and so on and so on.....

We are looking forward to taking back our new found learning and experiences and putting things into practice.  Horizons have been expanded.  Creativity and imagination have been sparked.  Determination has been ignited.

If you are interested in knowing more about EducAid's work with vulnerable young Sierra Leoneans, please go to www.educaid.org.uk and www.sierraleonegirls.blogspot.com