EducAid helps vulnerable young Sierra Leoneans achieve their potential

Balla Turay, ex-EducAid student and ex-junior staff, is celebrating. He was interviewed a few days ago for a scholarship to Venezuela to study and thanks to his excellent results, his ability to express himself, and his Community Service certificate, he was selected.

In a few months time, he will head off to start his ICT studies in Spanish!

We congratulate him and wish him every success in his new life.

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

More trouble at Magbeni

Yayah Kamara is headboy of the Freetown school and the image of excellence in attitude, endeavour and intelligence. He is also from Magbeni.
A couple of weeks ago, I was summoned to an emergency meeting in Magbeni because the relationship between the school and the community had degenerated to such a point that a serious meeting was required to settle things.

Today I was called back because the students had taken it into their own hands to sort the community out once and for all and went on strike.

It is scary to see, once again, how close to the surface violence and aggression are and how quickly youngsters resort to them as means to solve problems.

Thank goodness there are the others to keep the balance. Currently at the top of the Senior Secondary School are Yayah, head boy, and Musa, deputy head boy and they both originate from Magbeni. It might otherwise be very tempting to give up. Once again, the small picture is what preserves sanity and protects against being overwhelmed by the madness of the big picture!

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

Issa Fowai - making EducAid proud from China!

Issa in the cold
Issa has been in China for around 6 months. He was called by the Sierra Leonean embassy the other day for his impressive standard upheld throughout the term.

This is what he has to say for himself:

I became happy when I heard finally that I have been given this chance of studying in China. And I am trying to have fun, and be happy making use of this chance. Life which I believed should have gone astray after my B.E.C.E was finally denied by coming across Educaid my rescuer. Life today in china is as great as anything I might I had thought of in the world. As an Educaidian I am finding life very simple and exciting, despite the unfavourable weather which I have never experienced before. Starting life in China was a bit hard, because of the language barriers. Some of my friends only speak Portuguese, French and Arabic. But as we started classes it then became easier. Coping with the Chinese food was hard also. And the worst were the Chinese characters which I took to be fun. Having been in class with 14 different nationalities from different parts of the world, I became proud of the Educaid system. Like 100% attendance and excellent performance.

Fortunately for me I have 6 Sierra Leoneans in my university. I normally spend time with them, so I am not missing home 100%.

Travelling to Beijing with colleague was my biggest experience we went to many historical places. I normally spend my weekend walking around our 12 million inhabitants city called Tianjin. Playing football is my daily activity.

First when we started classes one of my classmates from Djibouti was topping the class, because he had already studied Chinese for 1 year. By the end of last semester I made him uncomfortable by leading the class with a 93% average in 5 subjects. And now we are like brothers rather than friends.

From the 17^th-20^th February we had the Sierra Leone students annual convention in Beijing which I was very happy to be part of. I had to move from my city to Beijing. I stayed with one of my Sierra Leone colleagues, whose father is working at the Sierra Leone embassy. His family was so kind to me. I spent 1 week with them. I met different personalities including the ambassador.

We have finally started the second phase of the Chinese language including chemistry physics and mathematics all taught in Chinese. Challenging but exciting and I am hoping to do more than well in the public exam (HSK) that is the Chinese proficiency exam hopefully in May/June to start the course itself civil engineering taught in Chinese.

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

World Maths Day

Ibrahim and Yayah [our mathematical experts] pit their mathematical skills against the World!
The only Sierra Leonean competitors, EducAid participated today in a World Maths Day. Although some schools seemed to take a long time coming online, our technology has held up reasonably well. The connection is horribly slow. We will get broadband one day [fingers crossed or something like that!] but in between times we seemed well able to hold our own on the maths side.

Aunty K

Aunty K with her beautiful smile
Kadiatu [commonly known as Aunty K] comes from Rolal village. She would spend day after day, hanging around the junior secondary school playing in the dirt, hoping for some attention and a bit of rice when they cooked. When she responded enthusiastically to the attempts of Steph and Emma [two British volunteers] to teach her the alphabet and the like, we decided to try and persuade her family to let her go to the primary school in Maronka.

Aunty K's family consist of an unemployed father, a stream of ragamuffin brothers and sisters and a mother who goes mad for 2 years [apparently!!!] whenever she is pregnant. She has been horribly neglected in her younger years and was unlikely to ever be put into school by her family. After some battles with her grandmother, who found her quite a useful errand girl, we took her to Maronka. Under a year later, she is responding wonderfully. She is always at the top of her class, loves school and wants to be a teacher when she grows up.

I don't know what her future will hold, of course, but I am very confident that her time in Maronka will have a dramatic and positive impact on her life chances and potential for achievement.

Aunty K is one of the youngest EducAid pupils but she is one of 100 who attend the Maronka primary school and one of 1400 who attend EducAid Sierra Leone schools.

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

More pluses than minuses this week

21 EducAid junior teachers [all but 3 are ex-EducAid students] ready to start their new course.
This week, we did the final stages of training the Port Loko Teachers' College tutors and now the distance education pilot has started there. Only 40% of teachers in Sierra Leone are trained and qualified so there is a desperate need for training. However, it would be even worse in schools than it already is, if all the untrained teachers were withdrawn in order to get them up to speed. The solution: a distance education programme with residential sessions during the school holidays. EducAid is supporting the piloting of this new course in the Port Loko Teacher's College and has 21 youngsters joining the programme. There are 100 student teachers overall and we are optimistic that through this programme the quality of the education on offer in the schools in the area can be dramatically improved.

The new Rolal staff quarters are nearly to wall height.

In Rolal, we are trying to beat the rains and hope to finish this stage of the construction by May or June. I say 'this stage of the construction' because we plan to concrete rather than roof at this point, leaving the possibility of another floor when we have the funds for expansion. We have a junior secondary school on the site. This is the new senior secondary school. We hope that, in time to come, this will become a centre of excellence where teachers from all over the area will be able to come and spend a few days each year for refresher courses in methodologies as well as subject content which is poorly covered at present.

Maronka happy helpers with their new school building.

In Maronka, Forut have a target. They are to hand over the building by 10th March in the presence of some of their donors so they are pushing hard. In reality, Forut provide the technical advice and the materials but it is the community that have built this school. It will be an excellent facility and again, we hope to have it be a centre of excellence for primary training as soon as we are able. The needs at primary level are enormous and the current quality of provision, countrywide, quite scandalously low.

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

Another day in Salone

Gibrilla Conteh, RIP [14.02.10]
Just back from Gibrilla's funeral. It turns out his crime was that of defending his uncle's petrol from a thief. For this he was stabbed to death. His mother had already died some years back. His father is in a distant part of Sierra Leone and it has not been possible to contact him yet.

A quiet, hard-working boy who had the misfortune to do the right thing at the wrong time. How appalling and extraordinary that someone would be willing to kill for a few gallons of petrol.

Not a great start to 2010. May this be the last such waste of life this year.

The Peer Mediators are preparing presentations for assembly about fighting and violence and their futility. Please God, we can foster a spirit of peace within the school communities.

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