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DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
The SLWT Jazz Night is back! Come and chill out with fabulous music, stirring poetry and great company on Saturday 27th June 2009 at 8pm at VivatBacchus, 47 Farringdon Street, Holborn, EC4A 4LL. Click here for more details and tickets
Then for a more hectic experience, join us for our 5KM FUN RUN at Battersea Park on Sunday 20th September 2009 at 2pm. Don't miss this fun-filled event! All ages and abilities are welcome and you can walk if that's what it will take to get you to join us! Click here to register
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Songo Agricultural Training Centre (SATC)
"What I have learnt on this course no-one can ever take away from me. No matter where I go now, I will always be able to make a living" Lucy - SATC Project Participant
The farming co-operatives have been a tremendous success! Having graduated in March 2008, the 2007 graduates were organised into five farming co-operatives. Each co-operative was given a loan of Le2million (£465): 70% in the form of crop seeds and 30% in the form of cash for tools, fertilisers and other farm inputs. Community elders then allocated between 2 to 3 acres of upland and swamp land to each co-operative for cultivation.
By March 2009, the five farms were thriving and had already yielded sufficient crop harvests to enable the project graduates to partially repay their loans. The entrepreneurial talent of many of these young people is clear as they make decisions about whether and when to plant okra, peppers, potatoes etc. Their knowledge of planting dates, the use of appropriate fertilisers and the calculation of their profits is also very impressive.
Having been mocked and heckled by other young people at the start of the course, it was with some considerable satisfaction that the project graduates explained that they had been able to provide employment to some of their hecklers when additional labour was needed on their farms.
Gibril and Albert (pictured below), have gone from carrying guns and taking drugs to growing vegetables to support themselves and their families. Their ambition is to move to commercial scale farming in 3 to 5 years, an ambition which is shared by all the other project graduates in the farming co-operatives.
Quotes from Project Graduates
"This course has changed my life completely"
"People were laughing at us but now they can see that it was really worth it"
"I don't have to take my handbag out at night (i.e. be a prostitute) anymore, I can feed myself and my family now" |
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Humu (picutred right) had her house was set alight and her parents' burnt alive in front of her during the war. She was then abducted, beaten and repeatedly raped by her rebel captors. Today, Humu is in Co-operative Group 1 and has completely rebuilt her life thanks to SATC. She really appreciated the weekly trauma counselling sessions she had on the course. |
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Next Steps at Songo
- To give Gibril and the other 2007 graduates a chance to fulfil their medium term ambitions for commercial scale farming. In 2009, SLWT has increased the loans granted to the 2007 graduates by 50% as part of that process.
- To support the establishment of farms by the 2008 graduates. SLWT has granted loans to these graduates and has hired a field worker who will provide additional support to all the farming co-operatives.
- To give other ex-child soldiers and disadvantaged youth the opportunity to train at the centre. In April 2009 a further 30 young people were enrolled on the course, giving them access to training, trauma counselling, free food and a monthly allowance for one year, to be followed by the chance to set up co-operative farms.
- To provide training for 15 - 20 community volunteers to become Community Health Workers following discussions with project participants, community elders and medical profesionals. There is an absence of medical facilities in the Songo area and the Community Health Workers will provide first aid care for minor health issues and serve as a link between the community and the nearest clinic.
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Click here to read more about the Songo Agricultural Training Centre and about Humu, Gibril and other former child soldiers and disadvantaged youth who are benefiting from this project. |
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Still partnering with the Thuan Mathinki Community to build for the future....
Although this project is now substantially completed (2002 - 2008), we have continued to maintain an involvment in education and health provision in this extremely remote community of 27 villages in the Bombali District of Sierra Leone. Click here for a brief overview of the Thuan Mathinki Community Rehabilitation Project.
Simeon Sesay Health Clinic – This clinic which was built by SLWT in 2006, is currently staffed by a matronly and dedicated nurse who remains in this remote community in spite of its challenges and isolation. |
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She is delivering a good service to the community but is hampered by an inadequate supply of drugs and medical facilities from the Ministry of Health. SLWT is working with Nurse Agnes and the local federation Munafa M'Patie to restock the clinic's drugs and to provide much needed medical furniture.
The most critical item on Nurse Agnes' list is a Solar Refrigerator to enable her to store vaccines and other drugs that need to be kept cold. The clinic is on a waiting list to receive a solar refridgerator from UNICEF but we do not know how long the waiting list is and when the clinic will get the fridge. The cost of the Solar Refridgerator is approximately £2,000 and SLWT is considering purchasing it for the clinic directly if the waiting period is unreasonably long.
The Kagnabkona Primary School that was built by SLWT in 2004 continues to function well and to provide the only access to education for children within this 3,000 strong community. |
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We are therefore hopeful that as and when the government has the funds to add new teachers on to the civil service payroll, payment of the Kagbankona teachers will be taken over by the Ministry of Education.
The library that SLWT established in December 2007 is popular with the school children and is used by each of the six classes in rotation. Sports activities are also encouraged and the school now boasts of a newly levelled and marked track that will be used for the annual sports competition in May 2009.
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SLWT Information
The Sierra Leone Wartrust for Children (SLWT) was started in April 1999 by 7 Sierra Leoneans living in the UK. Its creation was a direct response to the tremendous suffering caused to countless children and young people by the 11 year civil conflict. SLWT delivers its projects in partnership with credible Sierra Leone based organisations. All SLWT Trustees serve the organisation on a voluntary basis |
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Click here for more information about SLWT or call Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr on
0208 944 9029 |
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SLWT Newsletter
Spring 2009 |
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The progress made by former child soldiers like Rugiatu (pictured above) and other disadvantaged youth at the Songo Agricultural Training Centre is truly impressive. The second set of 25 graduates completed the course in December 2008 and have been organised into a further five farming co-operatives, bringing the total of farming co-operatives to ten.
Community elders in Songo have praised the project and have credited it for the significant reduction in crime, drug abuse and prostitution among the youth in the community. The wider community has also benefited from knowledge transfer as the project graduates are willing to share the agricultural skills that they have learnt with other farmers in the Songo community. |
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Winston’s reflections
In April 2005, Winston Hunter (one of the SLWT Trustees) was in Sierra Leone and had the initial conversations with Ola Smart, now the Project Director of the Songo Agricultural Training Centre, about setting up this project with SLWT. Four years on in March 2009, Winston was able to visit the project for the first time.
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FAWE Scholarship Programme Support
FAWE is an organisation that provides free primary school education to disadvantaged girls in the Western Area of Sierra Leone who are lucky enough to obatin a place in one of its three schools. As there are no free secondary schools in Sierra Leone, FAWE facilitates and encourages the secondary school education of its girls through a scholarship programme. In September 2008 SLWT made a 3 year commitment to provide the funds for the scholarships awarded to 30 pupils to pay for their school fees, examination costs, uniforms and books.
Three of the girls on SLWT scholarships are Finda Lansana (aged 13), Mary Sankoh (aged 12) and Elizabeth Williams (aged 12)pictured below from left to right. The girls now attend one of the best girls secondary schools in Sierra Leone but they would not have been able to do so without scholarships. |
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Elizabeth thinks school is excellent and her favourite subject is agriculture. She walks to school each day and it takes her one and a half hours each way. Elizabeth sometimes has to do without food at school beacuse her parents can't always afford to give her the Le1,000 (equivalent to less than 25p) she needs for lunch. Elizabeth wants to be an accountant when she grows up. Mary also wants to be an accountant, she loves school and her favourite subject is Maths. Finda likes social studies and learning about the world around her. She wants to be a journalist and to work in TV when she grows up. Like Elizabeth, Finda walks for one and a half hours each day to and from school.
Meeting these bright, bubbly and hardworking gilrs was a real inspiration and we are really thrilled that SLWT is giving them and other girls like them the opportunity to realise their dreams for the future.
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How you can help
If you would like to support the work of SLWT on a regular basis, please download a standing order form from the link below. Your contibution will go directly to fund the work that we are doing with children and young people in Sierra Leone.
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SLWT would like to thank all our supporters for your generous donations of money and time. You continue to ensure that the lives of disadvantaged children and youth are changed for the better and we and the project beneficiaries are very grateful to you. This year we would particularly like to thank:
Alacra
Garth Crooks
H E Melvin Chalobah
Otolorin Williams
Peter Herbert
The Fuserna Foundation
St Micheal’s Church Southfields
Strathmore Capital
To those of you who have standing order donations set up to SLWT, thank you for helping us plan for the future.
To those of you who attend our events, thank you for helping us enjoy raising money to keep our projects running.
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