Not up for long!

I remember once during my own secondary school days the total shock when we discovered that a girl in the year ahead had been killed in a car accident. The whole school went into slow motion and mourning as our illusion of youthful immortality was shattered.

Today, we have received news of our 7th student death in under 2 years. On this occasion, the terrible medical provision is not responsible. It is the other killer: next to the surface violence that flares up with so little provocation.

19 year old Gibrilla Conteh went back to see his parents in Waterloo for treatment for a minor ailment last Tuesday. On Sunday night, he was involved in a confrontation with a lad over we don't know what and the boy ended up chasing after him and stabbing him. He will be buried tomorrow.

What can be said in the face of such a terrible futile loss of life? Again, for me the other sadness is the other students' acceptance of his death. 'It is a pity.' is the strongest comment I have heard. Death and violence are so common. They are not brought to a standstill by their regular appearance.

For those of you who pray, please do so for our young people that they use their young lives well and are able to change something in this amazing but terrifying country.

If you are interested in knowing more about EducAid's work please go to www.educaid.org.uk

The ups and the downs

Last week seemed to be overshadowed by the disaster in Magbeni but this week things are looking considerably more positive..... I have just got back from a trip visiting all the schools and although the roads were hard - once again we witnessed the remains of two fatal accidents - the news from all sites was good:

The Magbeni community has started pulling its communal socks up, making it possible for us to stay on and commit together to finding a way forward. Further discussions to be held in one month's time.

The Maronka building has the beginnings of a roof and the doors and furniture are ready and waiting.

Obai Santigie of Maronka with the new school furniture.

The Maronka building continues apace.

Obai with the new doors.

The Rolal building is well on its way and we have started the negotiations with the Ministry of Education officials. Previously, this has always been a very frustrating business but the initial encounters with this round looks very different as we are able to deal with Port Loko based officials who are lending a hand and a word of advice as to how to go about it most efficiently.

Rolal foundations and pillars in place.

In addition, and how this escaped me to this point I really do not know, I have just discovered that, not only did we come 5th in the country in the last WASSCE [the senior secondary public exams] but also that the highest scoring student was an EducAid student. I asked him why he had not told me and he said he, himself, only discovered much later that he had been on SLBS [Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service] on television and radio. A quiet and unassuming young man with a quirky sense of humour, Malikie Barrie is highly intelligent and now serves as a junior member of staff in Rolal, teaching science. He will start on the distance teacher training programme in a couple of weeks but is also applying for a scholarship to China to join Issa Fowai for engineering studies. We wish him all good luck with this endeavour.

Malikie Barrie, highest scoring WASSCE candidate in 2009.

If you are interested in knowing more about EducAid's work please go to www.educaid.org.uk

And back with a bump!!!

After my first ever week offline and away from EducAid, on holiday with some concerned school mates, we are now back! And we know we are back, not only because of the crazy humidity and heat! On arrival I was summonsed to an emergency meeting in Magbeni.

Before my departure, one of the village community had broken into the staff quarters and stolen a camera from one of the British volunteers, staying in Magbeni for 1 term. The thief had been identified and had been locked up in police cells.

The plot had considerably thickened by the time I got back. The paramount chief had had the suspect released so that local investigations could be done to locate the camera. He had been re-arrested and re-released before we eventually got to court yesterday and pushed for the matter to be taken seriously. During this whole period, a small but seemingly out of control minority within the village had started threatening to 'deal with' the teachers rather than see the thief prosecuted and things were not looking good. They had even gone and made a counter-report with the police accusing a couple of the teachers of having the camera and keeping it under wraps.

After several hours in court, the theft case was adjourned for judgement later this week and the thief was refused bail. The paramount chief then issued a summons to the elders in Magbeni insisting that they find the camera or risk arrest themselves. We had a meeting with the elders and insisted that they take control of the situation and all threats and allegations be dealt with appropriately. The teachers cannot stay in a village or community where they are not safe. While it was a minority causing the trouble, the majority took no strong line against the trouble makers.

The current compromise is that the teachers did not leave the village, as threatened, but are not running the school either. The prefects are supervising silent study for the live-in students and the community students live with their parents awaiting some change in attitude.

Some of the youngsters, who have been through EducAid and are now serving as junior staff, were literally sobbing while pleading with their compatriots to see sense and ensure the school is protected. The elders who promised action and protection, say the right thing but seem unwilling to commit themselves to standing out against bad or even criminal behaviour when it comes down to it.

Today, community representatives have been to the teachers to plead with them to restart teaching. They have not however, gone to the police and withdrawn the allegations. I am gently optimistic that they will see sense and it will be sorted out but there is a small possibility that we will have to withdraw from Magbeni. Once again, the future of the young and vulnerable is put in jeopardy by the greed, thoughtlessness, and weakness of their elders. A battle worth fighting to protect them? I think so!

Rolal is in the process of being extended and all staff and students who want to come with us will be welcome there.

Please God, it does not come to that ......

If you are interested in reading more about EducAid's work please go to www.educaid.org.uk

In pursuit of excellence...

Headboy, Yayah by his new store.

The Women's Project teachers with their progeny.

The Headboy / girl teams.
We have today, instated our new headboy and headgirl team. Headboy, Yayah and his two deputies. Headgirl, Ngadie and her two deputies as well as a mirror team at the Junior Secondary level.

Particularly worthy or note are the junior headgirls. All three of these girls joined the school way behind their expected standard as education for them, had not been prioritised by their families, for a variety of reasons. They entered EducAid via the Women's Project in order to gain confidence and competence appropriate for the mainstream secondary school. Despite difficult educational beginnings, when given the opportunity by the women;s project, they have done excellently. Not only have they got themselves out of the Women's Project and into the pre-exam classes, they are able to stand in front of the school and speak in English with confidence and clarity. They are also setting an excellent role model for other students and particularly for other girls who, like them, strive for education against a range of very difficult circumstances.

If you are interested in knowing more about EducAid's work please see: www.educaid.org.uk

Maronka City... well, maybe one day!

The current school building made of mud blocks with a tin roof.

When we first started visiting Maronka, there were three houses and that was pretty much it. Obai Santigie [the chief] always made me welcome and encouraged return visits but there was little to draw outsiders in apart from the palm wine, the peaceful environment and the warm welcome. After some time, I asked Obai why there were six children, clearly of school age, not going to school. He explained that they would have to cross the jungle about 3 miles and at their age that was not a daily feasibility. It would have been a significant financial challenge too, of course. I bought him a couple of blackboards and a box of chalk and suggested that he got somebody who had been to school themselves to at least teach them the alphabet and some basics so that, when the time came for them to go to school, they would not have to start at zero.

Next time I visited, the six children had become twelve. A young woman who had completed a couple of years of secondary schooling had been recruited to teach them to read and write. The next time twelve had become twenty eight and Obai had started feeding them once a day so they could concentrate in class. The class was actually his 'barrie' [is this where the word barrister comes from???] where he heard and settled cases arising in his chiefdom. The next thing was that, while the children continued to grow in number, their teacher was taken on to greater things and moved out of the village. Obai asked me what we should do now. I wondered to myself, how there was a 'we' and found that I had accidentally started a primary school and was required to find a teacher to run it.

Mani Abu, childhood friend and best man of Alhassan's, had come from Freetown to teach in Rolal and was proving himself invaluable in terms of his hard work and commitment to the EducAid cause but he had left his wife behind in the city. Fatmata was asked if she would be interested in moving a bit closer to her husband and take up the responsibility and the rest is history! She has been running the school for 5 years. There are now over 100 pupils. EducAid took formal responsibility for the running of the primary school about three years ago and started sending senior Freetown students on 'community service' to work alongside Fatmata. 2 years ago, we added a bright young man by the name of Saffa Musa, who is an ex-EducAid student. Now there are 4 junior staff [i.e. ex-EducAid students] who work with Fatmata and run the school. They are also undertaking a distance teacher training course at the same time.

Maronka sent 12 students on to Rolal Junior Secondary School this academic year and they are more than holding their own with their fellows from other schools in Port Loko and elsewhere.

With the new building, my slowly growing confidence at tackling quality issues in terms of the teaching and learning [Kofi is my principal educator when it comes to how primary stuff works - it is otherwise something of a foreign country for me!] and some requests to help with teacher training in the area, we are looking at Maronka becoming a centre of excellence and really being put on the map.

Obai is inordinately proud of the development in his village and in turn, his hard work and total commitment to his people make working with the Maronka community always productive and very encouraging.

The appreciation of the community women was demonstrated on my last night there last week with all night dancing. Not sure there was quite so much work done the next day as there usually is.

Obai's right hand man and younger brother, Alhaji, hard at work making bricks for the school building.

The new building steps down the hill towards the village.

The new building seen from the side. The community are providing all the labour for this project in return for 'food for work' but no pay.

If you are interested in knowing more about EducAid's work please go to www.educaid.org.uk

More good news

Had a really good meeting today with the Director of the organisation funding the Maronka building. It turns out that actually, it was the local guy who had completely failed to pass on the message about requiring a slightly different building and structure. Authorisation was given to adjust the building to suit it to our real, rather than imagined needs. Participation in development is now restored!

If you are interested in finding out more about EducAid's work in Sierra Leone please go to www.educaid.org.uk

So much happening there is no time to write about it...

Since Kofi and I got back, I have not had the heart to send him back to the local school he had been attending. He has been dreading going back as he really has been spoilt for it by the wonderful, positive, creative environment that he has been exposed to in the UK on various visits but in particular to St Simon's in Stockport. His attendance was due to be somewhat disrupted for a couple more weeks anyway, so I have been home schooling him again while we work it out. He infinitely prefers this to the sit and copy education available nearby and I enjoy him being around too. I do not, however, see myself cut out for life as a primary school teacher. I do not have the patience! It is becoming the means though, for me to educate myself so that I can start really tackling the quality of what we offer in our Maronka primary school.

I am, at the moment, staying in Maronka during a week of training at Rolal. Sleeping outside in the open air school, to be woken by swarms of overactive weaver birds, is very enjoyable. We have been doing some additional training with the primary school teachers in the evenings and they are excited at using new phonics materials and getting their kids more confident at working out new words and reading independently; at using new techniques for developing the pupils' listening and speaking competence; at finding ways of developing creativity. How fantastic if we can stop playing catch up at secondary school and can, instead, get our youngsters to a universally acceptable standard of literacy, thinking, creativity and so on from primary onwards. This is currently not happening in any school in the country, with the possible exception of the American School i.e. not for the average Sierra Leonean at all.

Maronka has a new building on its way too. We are very appreciative of the donors' efforts but do really wonder why they were unwilling to discuss at all the layout of the building and whether what they proposed suited our needs. We will of course be very happy to have the use of a purpose built school with walls and windows!!! In order to use it fully however, we will have to do some significant adaptations. It is interesting that despite all the literature, research and global discussions, a lot of aid is still done to the beneficiaries, rather than in consultation with them.

Work on the teacher training programme continues to dominate. EducAid Rolal is the venue for the training of the Port Loko Teachers College lecturers this week. The reception of new ideas has been encouraging and because this programme is on a much more modest scale, we are able to really emphasise the point of the workshop. The workshop culture here has completely undermined people's value for new ideas and the opportunity for development. So many NGOs run so many workshops that they have become very seriously devalued. Many people attend workshops because there will be a good lunch and decent per diems. They have no intention whatsoever of changing their practice or behaviour as a result. In this case, however, there are no per diems, the lunch is modest and the accommodation cramped. We are therefore far more confident, than with the big NGO sponsored workshops, that we have got the people that care with us this time.

In Rolal too, construction starts this week, of a new senior secondary school: a very significant step forward for Rolal and for EducAid. This project has however been designed entirely by us and for our needs.

We have had very positive meetings too, this week, with some potential partners in development who will hopefully be funding EducAid to run a new school near Waterloo. Rogbere is on the way from Freetown to Magbeni so just about feasible within the weekly day trip tour of the current schools. The school is to be called the Rogbere School of Excellence. We will be delighted to bring this to reality. Initial relationships on this project were somewhat strained due to a number of misunderstandings. We were so pleased therefore, to find that the Rogbere community had sent a spy to check EducAid out and discovered that we were providing something they would definitely like to have access to. After many false starts, this surreptitious initiative ended up being the foundation for all the next stages.

So many steps forward...Please God, they will have an impact on the real problems that suppress the citizens of this country. We strongly believe in education as a destroyer of poverty. I hope that time will prove us right as we strive to provide better and better quality and thinking education to the poor and vulnerable here.