EducAid 2013-2014

2013 had some very hard things happen.  We have lost a number of students.  Their young lives were cut short before time and their families have lost the hope that they brought to them and we have lost their gifts from our midst too.  They have gone and we are left.  Let the light that went with them not be lost altogether.  Let us carry that light for them.  As we go forwards, let us remember that we have an even greater responsibility to use our gifts and carry on the fight for them as well as for ourselves.

Some have had disappointments and not been promoted or moved forward in our lives at a time when they wanted it and have had to learn the virtue of patience.  Many have learned to be proud of their decisions to wait and to use the time well.

We have also had some fantastic successes:

100% in the NPSE and the BECE (as usual – fantastic achievement by staff and students and representing a lot of work!)

Over 150 teachers trained through the QEP and QEPM, having an impact on the education of nearly 9000 children!

8 out of 8 applicants to the African Gifted Foundation Summer Academy were invited to Ghana and had a wonderful time in Accra.

6 out of 12 places offered went to EducAid girls for the GoWoman mentoring breakfast in Freetown.

3 Slow Farms started under Carrick’s management but with the great hard work of many many staff and students.

A wonderful EducAidian Professionals Conference was held where 100+ past pupils committed themselves to counter culture values of integrity and resistance to corruption.

Together, in 2014 and indeed going forward, we believe we can build on all these achievements and we have the potential for an amazing future.  

The Sierra Leone we are targeting is a strong Sierra Leone with a healthy population: healthy in spirit, mind and body – resistant to corruption, providing good health and education services to its people, leading the way in sustainable independent development and technology.  This is a Sierra Leone, where there will no longer be a great difference in wealth between the rich and the poor; a Sierra Leone where some are willing to come down a notch or two in order for the wealth to be shared more equally to everyone; a Sierra Leone, where every Sierra Leonean is a brother or sister with equal chances to achieve and equal responsibility to give.

In EducAid we want to learn to educate and be educated in order to make this real.  We want to use our education to disrupt injustice and inequality, as much as possible.  We invite each member of staff and each student to see the gaining of their own education not as a means for them to leave the group of the oppressed and become one of the oppressors but to help the oppressed rise up with them and to hold the oppressors to account.  If one person alone succeeds, they fail.  If someone succeeds while bringing others with them, that is true success.  Let us rise but let us maintain our compassion.  Let us see our education as a means to change not only our own personal situation but that of our communities and indeed of the country as a whole.  If we can maintain our motto of Love, we are powerful.  If we forget love, we will use our education to be better crooks, liars and thieves.  In that case, it would be better that there was no EducAid! 

We have the opportunity to do something very exciting if we work together and pursue excellence in our academic studies as well as in our service and love of one another. 

We call all EducAidians to use this time of Christmas to choose to love; to love powerfully and courageously. 

If you would like to know more about EducAid's work with vulnerable young Sierra Leoneans, please go to www.educaid.org.uk

Magbeni - Such very very hard news!

Last week we were celebrating Magbeni's fantastic achievement in the recent public exams.  This week we are in mourning.  Kadija (17) and Aminata (16) were playing in the river while doing their laundry and were caught by the currents.  Jumping from a nearby boat and playing in a river they have known since they were small girls, these two students lost their lives when they lost footing and misjudged the strength of the water.  A classmate saw them and went to call for help but was too late. Familiarity with the river seems to have made them take its power too lightly and despite rules about not swimming in the river, their paddling got out of hand.
The village and the school mourn their loss. We have all committed to hold even higher the light, knowing that as they can no longer carry their own, we must carry ours for them as well as for ourselves.

Our prayers are especially with their families.

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

Public exams - 100% success AGAIN!

Once again, all EducAid's Junior Secondary Schools had 100% pass rates in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). Countrywide, the standards are consistently closer to 40% pass rates.  With some of the poorest and most vulnerable young people in the country, EducAid achieves very very different results.

Magbeni came top of the EducAid stakes and this photo shows, Abu Koroma, Language Arts teacher, who had the best results, proving his right to his prize bag of rice by lifting it up (50kg of rice - that's a lot of rice an it's heavy!)

Fantastic job, as ever, by staff and students in all locations.  With this attitude and effort, we will make a difference in Sierra Leone. We will!

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

Widad Worneh, new Coordinator for Pastoral Care and Behaviour Management, is getting stuck into her role.  A key part of EducAid's positive behaviour management strategy is the peer mediator system.  Students are trained on each site to mediate in situations where students have got themselves in trouble.

The training focuses on listening skills, empathy, being a role model, mediating and conflict resolution.  Being a peer mediator has a high status in the schools and the team plays a vital role in addressing issues of poor behaviour and conflict student to student and even between students and teachers.

Well done Widad on an excellent initiative.

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

Isatu Kanu RIP

Another full on day in EducAid, with its great ups and terrible downs. 

Today we have heard that Jimiyke Koroma has completed his anti-TB treatment and one very lucky young man has come through after being very close to death with TB throughout his brain and body. 

On the same day, we have heard that, completely out of the blue, Isatu Kanu, student at the Rogbere School and sickle cell patient, has got up this morning and dropped dead from unknown causes on her way to the bathroom. To our knowledge, she was not ill and we will never know more than that. What a terrible loss to the school. What an appalling loss to her parents who today lost their 3rd child! 

For those of you who pray, please pray for the consolation of all those near her.

If you would like to know more about EducAid's work with vulnerable young Sierra Leoneans, please go to www.educaid.org.uk

1st EducAidian Professionals Conference - 12th October 2013

Modupe Taylor-Pearce inspiring the young EducAidians

So many good things happening that there is no time to blog about them!

On 12th October, 2013, the EducAid past pupils held their first EducAidian Professionals Conference.

Emmanuel Gaima leading the conference
in drawing up the Charter

The event was organised by Haja Gbla, Fatmata Romalieu Barrie, Yahyah Kamara and Ibrahim Bai Bundu - all past pupils themselves.  Haja is now doing her distance Higher Teachers' Certificate and teaches in the Women's Project in Lumley and Freetown Central Prison.  Fatmata is teaching in the Women's Project in Lumley and pursuing her ACCA studies.  Yahyah and Ibrahim are studying accounting in the same class and they both help out at the Lumley school.

They did a fantastic job, the event was well attended and participants were enthusiastic about the opportunity to get together and to reaffirm their principles.

EducAidian Professionals lining up to sign the Charter

The purpose of the conference was to provide an opportunity for the youngsters who leave EducAid enthused and principled, ready to take on corruption and do their bit to change the world to reaffirm this commitment.  It is hard to be the only person resisting corruption in a working place or class.  It is easier, if you have signed a commitment, if you have others supporting you, if you have reminders from other like-minded people as to why you are taking this stance.

Apart from the excitement of seeing friends they had lost sight of for many years, the youngsters were enthused by the appeal from exciting speakers: Harriet Gaima, Ibrahim Tommy and Modupe Taylor-Pearce.  Later, Emmanuel Gaima, facilitated a session when the participants put together their Charter: Vision, Mission, Commitments and Mutual Accountability Mechanisms.

Keen to commit themselves to a life with integrity

We had great media coverage on African Young Voices (AYV radio), SLBC, and Voices of the Diaspora.

Our hope is that, through ventures such as this, we can start to have a significant impact on the country more widely.  We are starting to position ourselves so that we are able to have an impact more broadly in Sierra Leone.

We aim to re-inspire each other to live and work well.  We aim to encourage other likeminded people to believe it is possible and to join forces so that the habits of corruption and greed get left behind.

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

Monitoring and Evaluation with Dr Rebecca Horn

Standard practice across all sorts of projects, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is the bane of many project workers lives.  In large part, this is because the dreaded logical framework (logframe) ends up dictating what has to be done, so activities are undertaken because they will satisfy the needs of the M&E strategy rather than because they are good things to do.

EducAid to date, has escaped doing any further self assessment than has been provided for by the public exams and we are very clear they don't measure half of the things we think are important.

I have been so relieved and impressed by the fantastic work done by Rebecca and the team of staff and students she has been working with this last week.  Working up from scratch using stories written by all students of their 'most significant change' since joining EducAid, they evolved 10 objectives and worked out how we could measure them.  They worked hard, debated thoroughly and have evolved something really excellent.

The team presented their work to me on Thursday and were clear and enthusiastic.

We now have a clear structure to help us assess ourselves on all the key criteria we see as important and we will be able to demonstrate to supporters, donors and critics alike exactly how well we are doing on our various goals.

Thank you Rebecca - it would have been completely impossible without you being willing to give us your time and expertise - and thank you to the staff and students who worked with her.

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