Justice for the poor!

This week I paid a visit to the Female Section of the Kenema Prison.  I found myself having to hold back tears as, before we had our little meeting, they un-self-consciously sang chorus after chorus about Jesus forgiving them their sins and how prison was not for them any more!  

32 inmates with four children in tow.

My meeting was to ask if some or all of the women would be interested in starting some literacy classes.  AdvocAid contracts EducAid to run a similar programme in Freetown Central Prison but now many of the long term female inmates have been transferred to Kenema and the plan is to extend the programme there now.  The data I needed was how long the women's sentences were and what their educational levels were.  A handful have some years of primary education behind them, one is a trained birth attendant, and the rest have no schooling whatsoever.  The educated, the wealthy in Sierra Leone are apparently not criminals.  It is the case the world over, I suppose, but here more starkly than elsewhere it is clear, that money can make all the difference.

I would like to think that the literacy classes can bring a spark of hope in a very bleak world but it seems almost crazy to try and plead for their cooperation with such a project faced as they are with such daily humiliations as deprivation of food, soap and basics, being locked up in their cells to save the officers the hassle of having to deal with them, torment over their children's fates on the outside without their mothers to fend for them.  In just a little time I felt so horribly helpless at the stories I heard.  

I have in the past had one ex-inmate visit me because she wanted a reprint of her literacy certificate so that she could use it to take some steps to a new life once she gained freedom and I do hope that there may be others who are able to use this opportunity to some purpose but goodness me it seems like a very tiny ray in the gloom.

Catch 22

Often I am asked what our students do after leaving school and if they can get jobs.  I always answer that we are able to help a few get sponsorship and that some find work but that whatever they go on to we have at least helped open some doors for them and also they are able to be thinking contributing citizens in a way they were unable to without education.  I mean every word of this answer but it seems increasingly glib when we look at the reality on the ground however.

Two weeks ago our senior students finished their final senior secondary exams.  Some packed their bags and headed for home as they put their pens down [we insist on everyone living in for the period of the exams and the preceding few weeks to assist with intensive preparation!]. There is a significant number though who have had to be almost forced out.  

The youngsters originating in our up-country Junior Secondary schools have left the Freetown school and have gone straight to their old teachers pleading to be taken on as volunteer junior teachers.  A good number from Freetown are displaying the same reluctance to leave too.

Thinking back to my ecstasy on finishing school and how I did not darken their doors for literally twenty years, this leaves me feeling very depressed on their behalf.

We do succeed in getting tertiary sponsorship for a number of our really soundest students but the numbers wanting this sort of assistance only increase, as is to be expected.  We hope that the new distance Higher Teachers Certificate course that Sean and I are managing the writing of will be a good and reasonably affordable solution for a good number but what of the rest???

I came to Sierra Leone to run a Junior Secondary School.  When our first students passed their JSS exams and moved on to Senior Secondary we found the provision so poor that we quickly concluded the only sensible thing to do was to find a way of providing Senior Secondary Schooling too.  So, what now?  Start our own college?  Probably not! But we must urgently find ways of getting additional funding [our school funding is already under serious threat due to the financial climate and the state of the pound] to fund sponsorship at college and university for as many as we possibly can.

We are on the tube!

Huw PW, son of long time friend of EducAid, and his old school mate Ollie have been in Sierra Leone filming positive stories across the country. Such stories are not as hard to find as you might think, bearing in mind our recent experiences!

They spent several days in EducAid and got some good footage.  One story that struck a chord was that of our head boy.  They put together a short film about him and have added their voice to the others seeking funding for his medical assessment trip to UK.

The link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOirYSBwyE0.

My internet connection is so slow I can't actually see it but I am reliably informed that it is 'brilliant'!

Many thanks lads!

Curriculum Revolution

Wow!

Relevant, cutting edge, suited to the needs of the youth of 21st century, post-conflict Sierra Leone.  For once Sierra Leone might not be last on the index for something! A new teacher training curriculum for Sierra Leonean secondary school teachers is being written.

Dr Sean Higgins [British teacher and long term volunteer with EducAid] and I are working with teams of teacher trainers from all over Sierra Leone writing the distance Higher Teachers' Certificate course.  Approximately 40% only of teachers in this country are qualified and trained.  However, removing the untrained remainder for training would obviously leave the schools and students in an even worse situation than they are currently. 

It is a mammoth project and we are swimming in the best and most up to date literature, thinking and resources from across the world for 20 different subjects.

It is like the fulfillment of all that we have been working on in EducAid for the last nine years.  The whole project has the potential to transform learning in secondary schools across the country.  For the first time in many many years, teachers in far flung villages will have good quality materials themselves from which they can provide accurate and complete information.  For the first time ever there will be a course focusing on skills and attitudes not limited to the most terrifying content heavy course as has previously been the case.

Maybe now, more than 40% of students sitting BECE [junior secondary public exams] and 17% of students sitting WASSCE [senior secondary public exams] will now pass!!!!

We are excited.  The lecturers we are writing with are excited.  Well... they are now.  It has been challenging.  Some started quite wary but, almost to a man, they are now really proud of what they are producing. Many from the first batch have been phoning and emailing with tales of already implementing new techniques in their own teaching.

Aminata Kabia [16] RIP

And so the bad news keeps rolling in....

Aminata Kabia joined EducAid last summer when the Women's Project started in Magbeni.  She had been out of school for many years as it had not been a priority or a possibility for her parents for her to continue her education beyond a few years of primary school.

She had however grasped this new opportunity with two hands and was regarded as a real role model to the other girls because of her commitment and her courage with regard to returning to school - she was quite rare in her community where girls' education is very low on the list of priorities.

A few weeks ago she suddenly stopped attending school and after a few enquiries amongst her colleagues the staff at the school were told that she had left school.  A little puzzled at this unexpected turn of events AA [the lead teacher in EducAid Magbeni] went to visit the family and ask what had happened.  He was told that she had severe abdominal pain but that they had not taken her to a doctor or treated her in any way.  He gave them some money to get her some basic assessment and treatment.  Some time later he went back and although he did not see her he was told that she was getting better.  The next day, today, he was passing once more and discovered that this afternoon she had died.  By all accounts, she died of an extreme infestation of worms!!!!  One more completely unnecessary Sierra Leonean death.

What can one say to such pointless losses of life?

British Volunteers taste the realities of life in the poorest country in the world

It has only been possible to start having volunteers from the UK in the last 12 months or so.  Previously, the situation just felt too unstable and unpredictable to take the risk.  

This term we have no less than 6 volunteers aged between 16 and 22.  They have been thrown in the deep end: arriving just as the school communities were taking in the loss of a particularly lovable rogue, known throughout all the 4 schools, they started work.  Within a couple of days they were hearing about health and life situations that really shocked them.  All the events recorded in previous posts have been their day to day fare just as it is mine.  At first, they did not know what to say to people when they realised they had a difficult story to tell but little by little they are becoming part of the communities where they operate and making real friends.

They are really putting their skills to good use: teaching literacy and numeracy, IT and debating skills.  Their term here will have a real impact on lives on-going.  I believe too their time here will also have an on-going impact on their own lives.  It will be hard to take everything for granted in quite the same way again.

They have really done exceptionally well, adapting to some fairly primitive conditions and still having something to give.  Not all volunteers do half as well!

Citizenship Education Week

Citizenship Education Week is over.  This year the focus was building self-esteem.

All students spent the week compiling their self-portfolios: self portrait collages, CV, my dreams, my hopes, my past, my achievements, my favourite music, poem, pictures, books; how I see myself etc etc

Why? 

Because 'Self' is undermined in so many ways here.  In western society too, youngsters struggle to find a sense of Self and to get the balance right between self-respect and arrogance and many lack self-belief and self-value but there is much greater consciousness to try and help that develop.  Here, there are the usual struggles as you grow up but it is reinforced by so many things in society and life: e.g. life is cheap [death is so common that it sends the message loud and clear that we are all completely dispensable]; if you have an opinion but it is not shared by your father, grandfather, teacher, boss it is not valid or allowed; poverty breeds more vices than virtues and the unthinking acceptance of corruption all around undermines the thought of maintaining personal integrity and not allowing oneself to stoop into underhand behaviour etc etc etc

While this aspect of personal development and holistic education is not new in EducAid we hope that the activities this week will continue chipping into the attitudes that result from such an environment and try to help our youngsters establish their self value, self-respect, self-belief - call it what you will.  The lack of it so terribly undermines society and democracy.  A little step this week that we will continue to build on day by day in all we do.