Hungry to learn

While kids are kids and we would not pretend that our students are universal saints who always thirst for knowledge, it would certainly be fair to say that we see far greater willingness to put themselves out for education than we would from the average UK teenager.

I do not remember, while teaching in a British boarding school, ever having to threaten to confiscate the books of a student who I caught studying in the middle of the night. It is not an uncommon event here. [There is a conviction that getting up and working through the night is the only way of really being serious about your study.]

Equally noteworthy is the attitude of the staff to opportunities for training. I was one of those who grumbled whenever the mention of 'inservice' training was made, when I was teaching in the UK. I am genuinely impressed, therefore, at the willingness of all the EducAid staff to participate in whatever training is proposed.

It is worth saying that it is not a comfortable enterprise either. All the up-country staff camp in the Lumley [Freetown] school during trainings. This can involve sleeping bodies all over the place and everyone putting up with the discomfort, in order to access whatever new knowledge is going.

The entire staff has just returned back to base, having spent most of half term doing training in curriculum issues, IT and designing materials. There would be a rebellion amongst UK teachers who had such a programme proposed to them!

The leadership team: Serious engagement with the complexities of a skills based curriculum.

The junior staff: equally willing to think through the quality of their work.

Congratulations to the EducAid staff and students

Newspaper cutting from 'Awoko'.

It doesn't matter where our staff go at the moment, they are congratulated at every turn. Once again, we have 100% pass rates in the junior secondary [key stage 3 equivalent] public examinations [BECE] and Magbeni, in particular, are right at the top of the whole Northern area.

Our aim now is to help more and more youngsters achieve this success and to increase provision at senior secondary level [Key stage 4 equivalent plus a bit].

At the moment, we cause an increasing problem for ourselves, by all the Port Loko district students having to come to Freetown to continue their education after BECE. Each year therefore, we add another 60 students to the live-in population in Freetown. We have hopes that we will secure a donation for £40,000 to build a new structure in Rolal, Port Loko this year. The man with the money is due to visit in early November and will decide any time over the next few weeks. We are optimistic.

The other problem is that, because of our success and the never ending need, we are experiencing greater and greater demand programme-wide. For example, the Magbeni school has overflowed out of its original building into an enterprisingly constructed bamboo classroom.

Junior staff, Bai Bundu and Joseph Kai, in front of the new bamboo classroom in Magbeni.

AJ's tutor group inside the bamboo classroom.

Sadly, we really need to reduce the overall programme population by about 150 youngsters, in order to really do the quality of work we want to. Or, maybe another saviour will come forward with the means to construct something more durable in both Magbeni and Lumley, so we can stop turning youngsters away. Here's hoping!

Really good news this time

At long last! Thanks to the kind efforts of a talented lawyer by the name of Paul Chiy, who took up Jimiyke's case, his application was resubmitted and today we got a phone call to say that the visa has been granted. He has taken his passport up to the British High Commission today and will collect it on Monday. Justice has been served this time.

If all goes well, he will travel with Kofi and me in early November when we go back to the UK for fundraising. We now have to make arrangements with the consultant and can hopefully set things in motion for a full diagnosis and appropriate treatment. The medical situation here continues to daily appall us.

[For those new to Jimiyke's story please read the post on 22nd May 09 or follow the link to: http://www.educaid.org.uk/EducAid_Sierra_Leone/Abu_Bakarr_Koroma.html]

If you want to know more about EducAid's work please go to www.educaid.org.uk

24/7 electricity - too good to be true?

EducAid at night with it's new electricity provision.

I met someone from World Bank in June. I was simultaneously outraged at the impunity with which, those who can, blatantly steal donor funding and at the incompetence of the aid agencies who unquestioningly hand over large amounts of donor money; amused at the woman's naivety and extraordinary incompetence and frustrated that once again the poor at the mercy of such people. She had been shown receipts for fuel and so on for the NPA [National Power Authority or No Power At all] and they had assured her that they were providing 24/7 electricity across Freetown. I laughed out loud. How long had she been in Freetown and not been able to work out that it was not true? We were generally getting 'government light' once or twice a week for a matter of hours.

The construction of the Bumbuna Dam to supply Freetown with hydro-electricity has been on-going since Alhassan was a child, as he remembered, and probably before too. It has been one of the new government's top priorities, however. And, in the last ten days we have finally seen some changes in the extraordinary non provision of power. We have had electricity most nights and most days [daytime power in most residential areas is generally unheard of]. It is life transforming to not have to head off to someone else's office, after your battery runs out, in order to recharge and continue working!

Please god, it lasts and someone didn't just lean on the wrong switch by mistake.

If you would like to know more about EducAid's work please go to www.educaid.org.uk

Difficult choices

Sitting up in their bench beds.

3 years ago or so, we realised that the one room in Alhassan's mum's bungalow which was for the live-in girls, was just not sufficient, in comparison to the need. We put steel doors on the top floor of the school to secure it at night, found space for a couple of cupboards for their bags and things and installed a small shower and loo [The Anne Hewlett Toilet]. The nine girls that had been sharing downstairs then had a decent space to live in at the top of the school. In the rainy season, it was awash with water when the winds were in a certain direction, so we sorted out shutters to protect them from the wind and the weather. Slowly it has become home to an increasing number of girls who would otherwise have had to lose their education.

Now, there are 35 girls all sharing the one loo and the limited cupboard space, but keen to complete their schooling. This is in the context of a country where many girls see gaining an education as a negative step backwards, as the men won't want you if you are educated, as you might think you are their equal [not a universal point of view but a very common one nevertheless] so we are keen to encourage the few that think differently.

The problem now is that we daily have requests from other girls who are horribly vulnerable, whose families do not prioritise their education at all and who will have to leave school and return to domestic chores or worse, if they do not stay with us.

My fear is that, if we carry on squeezing them in, we do a lower and lower quality job with the ones we have with us already. However, turning girls away when the consequences are so horrible does not seem like a morally acceptable option either.

Very difficult choices ahead................

Meanwhile, any woman who fancies an unpaid but rewarding boarding mistress post, with a significant training element to it, please apply to miriam@educaid.org.uk!

For any more information about EducAid's work please see www.educaid.org.uk

Margaret saying her night prayers.

Hannah sorting out the cupboard.

Lined up along the wall, like sausages!

And more and more....... in between the desks.

EducAid on the BBC

Some of our youngsters have the most harrowing tales from the war. A few of them interviewed each other as part of the BBC 'Hunger to Learn' series. Although, the versions they told in the interviews were quite calm, it gives a little taste of what they have been through. The courage and determination of these unknown heroes is exactly the sort of small scale focus that makes it possible for me to keep battling on. They are so determined to use education as a means to take control of their lives again that we have to carry on beside them too.

Please follow this link to read more:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8303105.stm

Yayah & Margaret

Abu Bakarr Koroma

Moses

For more information about EducAid's work go to www.educaid.org.uk

Issa settling in

A month or so ago, Issa Fowai, our second student to achieve international scholarship, set off across the world to study engineering in China. This was a fantastic achievement and was, surprisingly, done entirely on merit [Sierra Leone not being known for its meritocracy!].

He has kept us posted with news of the ups and downs and challenges. The first very difficult thing was that everyone had to undergo another medical examination on arrival. Many African students from the group were returned to their country of origin when it was discovered that there was something the matter with him. One Sierra Leonean, although he had done a couple of years in China already, tested positive for leukaemia and was put straight on the next plane back to Sierra Leone. Death sentence!

Issa has survived all the tests and has thrown himself into his Chinese studies with great enthusiasm. He has one year of Chinese before starting the engineering course proper. He is terrified, though, as they have told him that he will be going to some far flung part of China where the temperatures go down to -40! God bless him. We continue to pray for him and wish him all the very very best.

Issa, dressed for the weather, sets off to class.

Issa takes on the massive new challenge of learning Chinese.