Calling all cyclists

Every year or so, EducAid organises a big sponsored bike ride.  It is generally fairly challenging, great fun and most importantly enormously rewarding because it can raise a good sum of money for us on our core activities: running schools, feeding children and training and paying teachers and so on.
We are really excited about how well the programmes are going in Sierra Leone - new opportunities and developments all the time; children's lives being transformed beyond belief but it is horrible how much more needs to be done. We are turning children away. We are choosing to eat less nutritious but cheaper options in order to get something to everyone. We are having to refuse the possibility of supporting more schools in upgrading their teaching. We are significantly short of funds.
The next bike ride will take place on 25th - 27th July 2014.  It will run for about 300km down from Brussels through the Ardennes and Meuse valley (some great French wine country) and aims to raise around £40,000 for our projects.
While being a super fit whiz kid will always make life easier, the reality is that we will have a real range of fitness on the ride and support is always available for the slower among us.
This might be your big opportunity to get yourself fit and change the lives of very able but needy young people.
Please contact miriam@educaid.org.uk for more information.

Don't miss your chance to join in the fun and be part of this little corner of the fight for justice!

If you would like to know more about Educaid's work with vulnerable young people, please go to www.educaid.org.uk and follow @EducAidSL 

Book launch: Our World, Our Eyes, Our Imagination

Irena Przybyl, an old school friend of Miriam's, went out to visit Sierra Leone and worked with groups of children to take photos of their world to enable them to tell their own stories in their own way. Irena has worked for months since on collating and editing and organising.  She has raised the money for a full print run and finally her hard work has been rewarded and the books have arrived.
The Hare and Hounds in Rochdale are offering a space and nibbles for a book launch on Wednesday, 26th March from 7 - 9pm.  Books will be sold for £15 - the equivalent to education, food and medication costs for 1 child for 1 month.
Please do come to support Irena's amazing effort, find out about Sierra Leone, the EducAid children's lives and to get yourself a book or two!
This is just one way that you too can be part of the exciting work at EducAid Sierra Leone.

If you are interested in knowing more about EducAid's work with vulnerable young Sierra Leoneans, please go to www.educaid.org.uk or follow Miriam at @EducAidSL

2 out of 3 .......

STG and Wahid, two very impressive young men -
amazing overcomers who are determined to be part of a new
and reformed Sierra Leone

A few years ago, we had a trio of bright lads who did everything together and appeared to be really pushing to the top as fast as they could go.  They were hard working.  They took the initiative.  They were rock bottom poor but were determined to take control of their lives by using the opportunity of education they had been given. Today, Issa Fowai is studying engineering in China; Balla Turay is studying ICT in Venezuela and the third one has spent many years messing around in and out of police cells for the theft of mobile phones etc.  We actually had to have him removed from EducAid property in handcuffs by the police when we realised it had been him casting the shadow of doubt over the whole school by stealing money and other valuables over a long period of time.  He did not have the patience to wait and earn his success in real ways.
Recently, we have had three young men all targeting engineering. Their stories are appalling.  The disasters and suffering they have overcome are staggering and yet they all seemed to be doing just that: overcoming!  They were turning the page and becoming their best selves and leaving their street selves behind.  How terrible therefore to wake on Wednesday to find that one of them had raided the Maronka library, cleared a bunch of staff phones and the key to the programme motorbike and headed off with it in to the night.  He has dropped out and been drawn back in on so many occasions but with his intelligence and potential coming to the fore I had started being more confident that he would win in the end.
I am gutted for the loss of the bike which is such an important asset for us.  It feels like a bereavement though, when I think of what he has done to his life chances.
We know that we will never win them all over and that some inevitably will take the short cut and miss out on the opportunity to leave their street life behind but it will always break my heart when one of them does!
If you would like to know more about EducAid's work with vulnerable young Sierra Leoneans, please go to www.educaid.org.uk